The Greatest Mistake
by peacepoetrypotter
Summary: For seven months, Draco and Hermione have carried on a torrid secret affair. They agreed to keep the relationship superficial, and when exposed, they both insist they lack romantic interest, ignoring their retrospective doubts. But when Draco has the power to save Hermione from certain death, the truth that they have hidden begins to find its way out. [non-HBP/DH-compliant]
1. We Go One More Round

**"I Can't Stay Away" by the Veronicas**

_This is wrong_ / _I should be gone_ / _Yet here we lay_ / _'Cause I can't stay away_

_Roses bloom_ / _In your dirty room_ / _I come to play_ / _'Cause I can't stay away_ / _No, I can't stay away-ay_

_I'm conflicted_ / _I inhale / now I'm addicted / __To this place_ / _To you, babe_ / _I can't stay away_ / _Can't stay away_  
_We get up, we go down_ / _Then we go one more round_ / _It's wrong, they say_ / _I can't stay a- I can't stay away_  
_No, I can't stay a- I can't stay away_

_I was numb_ / _For you I come_ / _Night and day_ / _And I can't stay away_ / _No, I can't stay away_

_I__'m conflicted_ / _I inhale / now I'm addicted / __To this place_ / _To you, babe_ / _I can't stay away_ / _Can't stay away_  
_We get up, we go down_ / _Then we go one more round_ / _It's wrong, they say_ / _I can't stay a- I can't stay away_  
_No, I can't stay a- I can't stay away_

_I wish I could / __Leave and never return_ / _Baby, I know I should_ / _But for you I'd burn_

_Stay away / __'Cause I can't stay away-ay_

___I'm conflicted_ / _I inhale / now I'm addicted / __To this place_ / _To you, babe_ / _I can't stay away_ / _Can't stay away_  
_We get up, we go down_ / _Then we go one more round_ / _It's wrong, they say_ / _I can't stay a- I can't stay away_  
_No, I can't stay a- I can't stay away_

_I can't stay away_ / _I can't stay away_ / _I can't stay away_ / _I can't stay away__  
_

**Hermione stood anxiously** in her bedroom, trying to decide what she was going to take with her to the Burrow this summer. Usually she didn't spend much time, but this time was the last. Whatever she took with her tomorrow was what she had until the end of the war. She startled when she heard someone downstairs. Her parents were out to dinner. She was only home because she was packing her things. She'd convinced her parents to change the locks, so the only way someone else could get in would be to-

She shook her head frustratedly and stormed out of her room and down the staircase, greeted by the silver-blond hair she had expected.

"In case you hadn't noticed, this is the Muggle world," she jeered sarcastically. "You can't just pop into people's houses here."

Draco sneered.

"Are you trying to tell me this is a regular Muggle house? There's a Daily Prophet lying on the coffee table."

"You're lucky I didn't attack you instead! Now what on earth are you doing here?"

"I needed to ask you something," he said flatly.

"And it couldn't wait?"

"Wait until when? I'm not so naive as to think that the Weasleys would let me in!"

"All right then. What is it?"

"Why weren't you angry?"

Hermione's heart jumped. Her left hand moved instinctively to rest on her right forearm, clenching the fabric of her sweater against her skin.

_I knew I should have erased his memory..._

"Wh-why does it matter?" she stuttered.

"We're at war, Hermione. Do you think we're both making it through this?"

"What do you want to know? What I would have done?"

"Why don't you hate me after what they did? I was there! I helped them!" Draco exclaimed. It took him a moment to catch his breath, and then he reached forward and grabbed her left wrist, pulling it away from her right arm and shoving the sweater sleeve up to her elbow to reveal the crimson word on her forearm: mudblood. He cringed inwardly, but was skilled at concealing his feelings, so he lost no composure, and spoke clearly and flatly.

"I don't understand how you can forgive me for this."

"I don't forgive you. I don't need to. It wouldn't do me any good."

Having expected Hermione to be less adamant, Draco was slightly shaken. Hermione picked up on his hesitation, and lowered her voice even further.

"We're at war, Draco. Do you think we're both making it through this?" she quoted harshly, pulling out of his reach. Draco rolled his eyes.

"I am a lot of things, Draco, but first and foremost, I am leading the Order of the Phoenix into war," Hermione asserted, looking him square in the eye as she spoke.

"My chief duties are to protect Harry Potter and to disable the Death Eaters. I'm not _on_ the frontline, Draco. I _am_ the frontline in this war. Everything else comes after."

"I have one more question," Draco said tentatively.

"Yes?"

"If it comes down to you and I-"

"No special treatment. This," she gestured towards the few inches between them, "never happened."

"Perfect. We're on the same page, then."

Just as Draco turned towards the door, the Malfoys' eagle owl landed on the back of one of the chairs in the Grangers' living room. Draco cautiously grabbed the slip of paper out of its beak and read it aloud.

"Dearest Draco, we've had a search out for you almost a week now. I went to Diagon Alley today to ask around again. No one had seen you, except for a couple people in the Leaky Cauldron, and I think they were drunk, since they told me you had gone into the Muggle world. An auror has been sent in Muggle London to look for you nonetheless. Please, come home, Draco. I don't know why you left so suddenly but we need you here, darling. Love always, Mum."

Draco sighed, sinking into the chair with his hands cradling his head.

"Fuck," he groaned.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"You don't honestly think they're going to find you here?"

"You don't live that far from the Leaky Cauldron, you know," he said defensively. "Not in terms of people who spend their lives running around the world searching for people and investigating murders. I think they've got a bloody good chance."

"You won't be coming back, then?"

"What, are you trying to get rid of me?" Draco retorted, displeased at how poorly he knew he had disguised his offence. As well as he was able to fool most people, Hermione could read him like a book. There was nothing else that bruised his ego as much as the endless list of ways that Hermione Granger had shown him up or proved him wrong.

"I'm trying to protect my family," she scoffed.

"No, I won't be coming back here. I'm not an idiot, Granger," Draco sneered, purposely ignoring her answer. He stood up from the chair, folding the letter and sliding it into the pocket on the inside of his suit jacket. Hermione stood up straighter.

"One last hurrah before we forget it all?" Draco asked, cocking his head and looking at her expectantly. She resisted the urge to laugh, but almost habitually began to undo the buttons on her sweater. They didn't need to speak any more. After nearly seven months of sleeping together, they knew each other's body language and facial expressions like the backs of their own hands.

Draco unbuttoned the last couple buttons of Hermione's sweater, then carefully took off his jacket and laid it on the back of a chair. For a moment he watched as she dropped her skirt to the floor, and then he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and began to kiss her passionately, his lips travelling down her body as they became increasingly engrossed in one another.

After about twenty-five minutes of increasingly impassioned snogging, Hermione jerked Draco up the stairs and into her bedroom, quickly leaving a note for her parents saying that she'd turned in early in anticipation of her coming departure. She knew that they wouldn't come in to her room to check. They, like everyone else, assumed that she was the most responsible, honest teenager they'd ever meet. That was the only catch with Malfoy: he knew how far from the truth that sometimes was. The bra and panties on the floor, lying next to his fancy dress pants which he almost never bothered to fold, were testament enough to the less innocent side of her.

**Draco woke with a start** and then noticed that the time on Hermione's clock was nearly eight in the morning. He crawled out of the bed, and sighed as he slipped his jacket on.

"Remember: you were scouting for Potter," he whispered to himself. He took one last look at the woman peacefully sleeping in the dim bedroom, subconsciously biting his lower lip, then turned away and gingerly shut her bedroom door. He couldn't shake the thought that the previous night was really the last time they would sleep together; he just couldn't make the idea seem realistic. Knowing better than to open the door back up, he walked down the stairs, slowly and contemplatively. The stationary photographs were somewhat fascinating; he wondered how muggles would decide which piece of the moment to photograph.

_Maybe they don't really think about it...maybe they just take the photograph and see what they get instead of trying to plan it perfectly..._

As he reached the bottom step, his interest was piqued by a photograph of the Granger family, and he walked over to look at it. It had obviously been taken before Hermione had gone to Hogwarts, but even in her former school uniform she looked almost the same as she had when he met her, so he supposed that she was likely ten, nine at the youngest. Her hair didn't seem as bushy or as juvenile as he remembered it being, though, especially when juxtaposed against a snug dark green sweater. Realising that the skirt was black and the insignia was all in silver, he almost laughed, but stopped himself with the recollection that her parents were home as well, and them learning that he was here could only end badly. He was struck by how proud of her they looked in the photograph, with their beaming smiles and matching scarves.

For a moment Draco felt a pang of sadness, knowing that she had spent very little time with her parents since she started attending Hogwarts and that now she may never see them again. He hadn't asked specifically, but he knew Hermione was going to erase their memories; that way, if the Death Eaters were to capture them, they would not have anything of value to tell. He briefly regretted poking fun at the Weasleys' unofficial adoptions of Hermione and Harry; he would have always argued that the two had families of their own, but especially now that they were adults - and at war - their magic separated them that much more from the muggles in their lives. He was quickly able to shrug it off when he heard a door close.

**Hermione was shaken** from her dream by the sound of footsteps on her stairs. Seconds after she awoke she realised that she was alone in her bed - except for a thin green and silver tie lying next to her pillow. She let out a light laugh, then grabbed the tie and stroked the silk for a moment as she sat up. After a minute she noticed that there seemed to be something tucked inside of it. She pulled her wand from the nightstand and very carefully opened the tie down its seam and found a minuscule bottle. Its worn label said 'P-BELL.' Hermione wasn't sure what it meant but decided that it would probably benefit her to keep it. She slid the bottle into the drawer of the nightstand and slipped into a short lingerie dress and ballet flats, sliding the tie into the pocket in the dress. She opened the door gently, but cringed when the door's closing was louder than she had planned.

"Draco?" she called quietly as she walked down the staircase. She saw him only once she had walked about halfway down, standing in the living room with an inquisitive and secretive gleam in his eyes.

"I ought to be leaving, you know," he said, trying to sound matter-of-factly and superior as he advanced towards the front door, stopping directly in front of it to silently open the lock. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hermione rolling hers.

"I know," she replied in the same tone, stepping off of the bottom stair.

"Okay, then."

Draco haughtily stepped onto the porch, barely allowing Hermione the time to follow him. She moved so that she was standing in front of him and reached into the pocket on her dress. She slung the Slytherin tie around his neck and started to tie it.

"You never fail to forget this, you know," she scolded mildly as she tightened it.

"I'm always wearing it, so when I get dressed I assume that I'm wearing it," he conceded. She laughed, and Draco used the second that their eyes met to lean forward and kiss her lightly. Hermione was reluctant at first, knowing that they were minutes away from needing to return to despising one another, but ultimately decided to let the kiss grow rougher as they advanced. Draco rested his hands on her hips, wrapping his left arm around her further and pulling her entirely into him, so that every part of their bodies which were able to were pressing against each other.

Neither of them knew how long their embrace lasted; it ended only when they both realised that they were moments away from starting to undress each other again and absolutely had to stop themselves from going any further. Hermione moved back towards the door and Draco turned to the street, both out of the same desperation to distance themselves from their history. They spent a few minutes reminding themselves that they hated each other, and once they both had caught their breaths they turned back to look at each other coldly and spitefully.

"Granger," Draco said bitterly.

"Malfoy," Hermione returned, breathing more deeply and standing taller. Draco scoffed.

"This is war, Malfoy," she continued, all the sympathy and lust drained from her expression, and her voice hit clearly, directly, and caustically.

"I don't need to be told twice," Draco spat pridefully, pivoted around, and strutted the regretfully familiar path to the Leaky Cauldron.


	2. Down the Information Highway

**"We Are" by Ana Johnsson**

_See the devil on the doorstep now (my oh my) / telling everybody, oh, just how to live their lives /_  
_sliding down the information highway / buying in just like a bunch of fools /_  
_time is ticking and we can't go back (my oh my)_

_What about the world today / what about the place that we call home /_  
_we've never been so many / and we've never been so alone_

_You keep watching from your picket fence / you keep talking but it makes no sense_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are_  
_you wash your hands and come out clean / fail to recognise the enemies within_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are, we are, we are_

_One step forward making two steps back (my oh my) / riding piggy on the bad boy's back for life_  
_lining up for the grand illusion / no answers for no questions asked_  
_lining up for the execution / without knowing why_

_You keep watching from your picket fence / you keep talking but it makes no sense_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are_  
_you wash your hands and come out clean / fail to recognise the enemies within_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are, we are, we are_

_It's all about power then / take control / breaking the rule / breaking the soul_  
_they suck us dry till there's nothing left / my oh my, my oh my_

_What about the world today / what about the place that we call home /_  
_we've never been so many / and we've never been so alone / so alone_

_You keep watching from your picket fence / you keep talking but it makes no sense_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are_  
_you wash your hands and come out clean / fail to recognise the enemies within_  
_you say we're not responsible / but we are, we are, we are, we are_

_It's all about power then (we are) / take control (we are) /_  
_breaking the rule (we are, we are) / breaking the soul (we are)_  
_they suck us dry till there's nothing left (we are, we are) / my oh my, my oh my_

_We are / we are (its all ) / we are / we are / we are (take control)_  
_we are / we are / it's all about power / then take control_

**No sooner had Draco** stepped into the Leaky Cauldron than was he greeted with a forceful hug from his mother: her arms tightly gripped around around him, her hands stroking his hair, and her momentum offsetting his balance.

"Oh, Draco, Draco! I was so worried! You had me so worried! Are you all right? What on-"

"Calm down, Mother. I'm perfectly all right," he told her admonishingly, interrupting her in between her vivacious statements. Narcissa pursed her lips together, but held onto him for another moment before he actually shoved her away. Draco heard his aunt scoff, and only then looked past his mother to see the assembly gathered in the restaurant: not only his aunt, uncles and parents, but Dolohov, Greyback, and Wormtail. Quickly he began to feel more uneasy. A gathering like this very, very rarely happened anywhere but the Manor; too many important people were involved. He observed that the sign on the door was still turned to 'closed' even though it was just past nine, the blinds were still down, and almost all the lanterns were unlit.

_Shit,_ he thought, realising that he was in more trouble than he had expected.

"All right as in alive, you mean," his uncle Rodolphus grumbled.

"What did you think I was talking about?" Draco quipped.

"I'm not sure about whether you are mentally all right."

"Why wouldn't I be?" Draco snapped. His mother jumped into the conversation soon after his uncle spoke again.

"You practically ran away, Draco-" Rodolphus began.

"Why don't we do this at home? The Cauldron should have been opened by now; we don't want anyone stressing about it," Narcissa interjected. Rodolphus sighed angrily.

"Very well then...Antonin, will you bring the boy back?" he said as he reached for his wife's hand. She gestured to Greyback and Wormtail, then Disapparated, leaving only Dolohov and her sister's family. Narcissa's and Lucius' faces were struck with fear; Draco himself was, but was composed.

_If they're having someone bring me back, it means they're treating me as separate...they must have seen me..._he thought as Dolohov grabbed the collar of his suit jacket. His parents, although having been standing near each other, both desperately searched for the other's hand, and clung to each other very tightly. They Disapparated a few seconds before Dolohov flicked his wand, and lit the lanterns and flipped the sign on the door. He tightened his grip on Draco, then left for the Manor.

**Hermione reminded herself** not to cry as she tiptoed down the staircase. She gingerly laid her bag at the front door and turned back to look at her parents, who were sitting a few meters away on the couch in the living room, looking through photographs her aunt Becky had just sent them. She smiled at the memory of her little cousins, and then refocused herself. Shakily, she pointed her wand towards them.

Her attempt at a whisper was unsuccessful, and she lowered her arm again, and spent a minute taking deeper and deeper breaths, pushing away the tears which insisted on coming. Once she was convinced she was not going to break down crying, she raised her wand. She looked intently at her parents, running through the story she had manufactured and, with a slow twist of her wand, muttered, "Obliviate."

**Dolohov's landing** was a bit rough, and Draco struggled to catch his breath as he was dragged up to the gate of the Manor. Bellatrix, who had been watching from a window, Apparated down to open the gate for them as they approaching, following behind them as Dolohov pulled Draco up the stairs and into the dining hall. He shoved Draco away once she shut the door behind them, and Draco promptly seated himself next to his father.

The conversation seemed to continue as normal for a while, as though Draco was not even there. He started to think that it was possible that he was being punished for some sort of disobedience to his parents. There didn't seem to be any disciplinary procedures, just a bunch of frustrated adults. By the time Draco bothered to look at his watch, it was nearly noon, and his stomach was beginning to grumble. His mother stood up a couple moments later, grabbing both her husband and her son by their sleeves and walking towards the door, stopping at the head of the table to answer to her sister's inquiring glare.

"You need to get some food in you," she barked when she saw that Lucius and Draco both were looking at her sceptically. Draco sighed as he jerked his sleeve out of her grasp, but followed her out of the room, and his father came close behind. They proceeded into their kitchen, sitting at the dining table as his mother rushed around the kitchen, grabbing various items from cupboards all around them. Shortly after they began eating, Bellatrix came and demanded Lucius, and he, with an apologetic smile at his wife and a kiss on her hair, retreated with Bellatrix back into the dining hall.

A moment later, Draco and Narcissa were joined by their family's owl Orion, who regally flew into the room, carrying the Daily Prophet in his beak. He dropped it at the other end of the long table, then sped away. Narcissa rolled her eyes as she stood up and walked over to it. The moment she first looked down on it, she shrieked, startling Draco into going to join her. As soon as he saw the front page, he could feel himself growing paler.

**BREAKING NEWS:**  
**DRACO MALFOY FOUND IN MUGGLE LONDON**  
**SHOCKING AFFAIR WITH HERMIONE GRANGER**


	3. No Time for Goodbye, He Said

**"Get Out Alive" by Three Days Grace**

_No time for goodbye / he said / as he faded away / _  
_don't put your life in / someone's hands / they're bound to steal it away /_  
_don't hide your mistakes / 'cause they'll find you, burn you / then he said_

_If you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for your life / _  
_if you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for your life_

_This is my last time / she said / as she faded away /_  
_it's hard to imagine / but one day / you'll end up like me / then she said_

_If you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for your life / _  
_if you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for your life /_  
_if you want to get out alive (if you want to get out alive) / whoa-oh / run for your life (life) /_  
_if you want to get out alive (if you want to get out alive) / whoa-oh / run for your life_

_If I stay it won't be long / 'til I'm burning on the inside /_  
_if I go I can only hope / that I make it to the other side /_  
_if you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for your life /_  
_if you want to get out alive / whoa-oh / run for..._

_If you want to get out alive (if you want to get out alive) / whoa-oh / run for your life /_  
_if you want to get out alive (if you want to get out alive) / whoa-oh / run for..._

_If I stay it won't be long / 'til I'm burning on the inside /_  
_if I go I can only hope / that I make it to the other side /_  
_if I stay, it won't be long / 'til I'm burning on the inside / if I go / and if I go_

_Burning on the inside / burning on the inside / burning on the inside_

**Draco cringed** as his mother looked back and forth between him and the newspaper.

"Draco..." she said pleadingly, her voice barely a whisper.

"Mother, it's nothing," he replied in the most haughty tone he could manage. "We were not dating and it's over anyway. Case closed, no big deal."

"But you were in the - in the - in the muggle world-"

"What's that supposed to mean? It's not like it's terribly difficult to get to or anything."

"Well, no, dear, it isn't, but to go there...to meet with someone..."

"It was that or take my chances trying to convince the Weasleys to let me in, and no amount of shagging is worth that much effort." His mother's scolding look was piercing.

"I'm seventeen, Mother, for Merlin's sake! It's only natural!" he groaned.

"Not with her it isn't!"

"Oh, come on, I didn't get her pregnant or anything, not like anything's going to come of it."

"And you're certain of that?"

"I know all the spells, Mother; we were perfectly safe, save for her being a Mudblood."

"But she's still-" Narcissa protested.

"You know, if you keep going on like this, sooner or later, I'm just going to stop paying attention, right?" Draco sneered. Narcissa huffed, crossing her arms angrily over her chest and gritting her teeth.

"It was fun, okay? That was it," Draco continued. "Absolutely no-strings-attached, emotionally-absent, carnal, erotic, sex. That's all it was, just sex."

Narcissa grew the slightest bit paler as she listened to Draco speaking, reticent to even imagine her son using a muggleborn girl as his means to sexual pleasure, let alone one so close to Potter. She couldn't blame Granger; Draco had always had a following of girls willing to drop their skirts in a second. It was her son's motive that she couldn't understand. Granted, the girl was attractive, but not possibly attractive enough for her son to risk his neck over. She couldn't help thinking there may have been foul play; maybe potions, maybe something stronger. She wouldn't even put the Imperius Curse past Granger. The girl had skill, and if she was anything like purebloods like she insisted she was, she'd set out to use it.

"And it's over? You've ended it?"

"Entirely."

Narcissa groaned. She'd have to take his side on this one; remaining neutral would only set him up for punishment. Not that he wasn't going to be punished already; Lord Voldemort was very displeased with Draco for leaving the Manor unannounced twelve days earlier. The last thing their family needed was Draco being tortured again. She had enough trouble keeping them all together as it was; she'd surely lose the last of Lucius' waning hope in his son if he and his childish lust got them into a tight spot yet again.

"Very well, then," she sighed. "I'll see if we can get the Prophet to talk to you, so they can get the real story before everyone decides you've fallen in love, gone barmy, and become a blood traitor."

Draco stared at her blankly, feeling a mixture of confusion, shock, anger, and fear. She grabbed his right hand and laid the paper in it, pointing towards the fireplace at the other end of the room.

"Quickly, now," she urged. "We'll need that to be all burnt up by the time anybody else comes in here. I'll work on a letter to Barnabus and have Orion fly it up to him later."

Draco strutted over to the fireplace and unrolled the paper, beginning to read through the article. Narcissa cleared her throat, looking at him expectantly.

"I'd like to know what I'm dealing with," he griped. "If I don't know what they said I don't know what I'll need to debunk."

When he was finished reading, he carefully rolled it back up, then chucked it into the fireplace. The flames grabbed for it immediately; red, orange, and yellow embers pulled the paper down into the centre of the fire.

**Hermione gritted her teeth** as she reached forward and pulled open the front door. She stuffed her small bag into her jeans' back pocket, gripped her wand even tighter, and forced herself to step through the doorway and slam the door shut behind her. She slid her key into the lock and twisted it anti-clockwise and back again before shoving it into her front pocket. Allowing herself only a couple of glances back at the house, she started off towards the Leaky Cauldron.

She landed outside the Burrow with a thud, thankful for the Undetectable Extension charm she'd placed on her bag, which she figured would have offset her balance enough for her to fall. Almost as soon as she had landed, she heard a clanging from inside the house, and the door swung open as Ginny sprinted towards her. Both girls were nearly knocked over by their enthusiastic hug, but held tight to one another regardless. When Ginny ultimately let go of Hermione, her expression had become solemn and remorseful, but she refused to answer Hermione's inquiries as to what was wrong, instead walking ahead of her into the house.

The entire family, along with a few other members of the Order, was gathered around the table in the kitchen, but only Remus stood up to greet her. At this she was struck with even greater confusion. She found herself unable to speak when he approached her, and settled for the furrowed brow and gaping mouth she was left with after her attempts to do so. He looked at her with a gentle gaze, but Hermione could see that there was confusion and anger behind the affection he showed, as she waited nervously for him to speak.

"You have got a lot of explaining to do, young lady."


	4. I Should've Never Thought of You

_**[Warning: THIS IS WHEN THE SHIT (REALLY) STARTS TO HIT THE FAN, slightly farther on the M side than the previous chapters: more cursing, general vulgarity, major family problems on both ends, smoking]**_

**"I Caught Myself" by Paramore**

_Down to you / you're pushing and pulling me down to you / but I don't know what I /_  
_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought /_  
_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought / of you / of you_ / y_ou're pushing and pulling me down to you / but I don't know what I want / no, I don't know what I want_

_You got it you got it / some kind of magic / hypnotic, hypnotic / you're leaving me breathless /_  
_I hate this, I hate this / you're not the one I believe in / with God as my witness_

_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought /_  
_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought / of you / of you_ / y_ou're pushing and pulling me down to you / but I don't know what I want / no, I don't know what I want_

_Don't know what I want / but I know it's not you / keep pushing and pulling me down / when I know in my heart it's not you_

_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought /_  
_now when I caught myself / I had to stop myself / from saying something that / I should've never thought / of you /_  
_I knew / I know in my heart it's not you / I knew / but now I know what I want / I want / I want / oh no / I should have never thought_

**Fear danced across** Hermione's eyes as she walked farther into the Burrow and over to the kitchen. As she moved closer she could see that every person's face held about the same expression as Remus' and Ginny's, and her heart sped up with every step she took. When she was a couple meters away from the table, Molly stood up, gripping a paper in her hands, and marched over to her. She enveloped Hermione in a constricting, maternal hug for a minute or two before leaning back with Hermione's cheeks at her fingertips, then handing Hermione the paper.

Hermione kept her eye contact with Molly even after she took the newspaper into her clammy palm, afraid to look down, knowing what she was likely to see. Her eyes scanned the room, darting between Arthur's, Molly's, Remus', Tonks', Fred's, Bill's, and McGonagall's gentle and concerned, but stern looks, George's, Ginny's, Percy's, and Fleur's quizzical, unsure glances, and Ron's caustic scowl. She took a heavy breath and obliged her eyes to turn themselves downwards.

Although she had had an idea of what to expect, she gasped almost immediately; for, spanning the entire centre column of the periodical, were photographs of the impassioned embrace she and Draco had shared earlier that day. Words were relatively sparse beyond the headline: 'BREAKING NEWS: DRACO MALFOY FOUND IN MUGGLE LONDON. SHOCKING AFFAIR WITH HERMIONE GRANGER.'

"Our response exactly," McGonagall contested.

"H- h- how did they even find my house? And why was there a photographer? The Ministry had an Auror out for Draco but-"

"Oh, so it's Draco now, is it?" Ron growled condescendingly. Hermione speechlessly sneered back at him.

"Ronald..." Molly warned. He sent her a momentary glare but then returned to staring angrily at his shoes as his face turned redder and redder.

"It doesn't matter how-" Bill began.

"It damn well matters how-" Hermione interjected.

"Hermione, please, just listen," Tonks remonstrated, and the entire room shifted to look towards her. "It doesn't matter how because we can't change it at this point. Usually the Obliviators could be sent out, but the Daily Prophet's spread is too wide, it would be impossible to change the memories of every person who has seen the article. Your parents aren't in your house any more, but for the time being we can keep an eye on the property and make sure no one's trying to mess around with it."

"I'm not worried about the house, Tonks! I'm worried about-"

"I know, I know. How it turns out is up to you, though, so I can't have any consolation on that part, except to be here and be your friend. The rest...sorry to say, you're going to have to handle."

"But what am I supposed to - everyone thinks - but it's not - we weren't...I don't know how to handle it."

"That's a first," Fred said teasingly, only to receive a slap from Ginny and glares from Hermione and his mother.

"Just trying to diffuse the tension," he contested.

**"Tomorrow. Nine o'clock,** on the dot, in front of the fountain at the Ministry. Go pick out some of your best dress robes," Narcissa ordered, slapping the paper down on the table in front of her son and jerking his attention away from the book he was reading.

"Press conference?" he asked unenthusiastically, and she nodded.

"Make sure you've got your story straight. I'll get you up a bit earlier so that you can have plenty of coffee by the time we get there," she replied flatly, refilling the cup in front of him.

"We?"

"Call it a family outing, Dragon, darling. Just the five of us."

"The five of us?" Draco exclaimed, slamming his book on the table and shoving himself up to his feet. "Why the five of us?"

"They insisted on coming, dear-"

"Yeah, so they can find something to torture me for later!"

"Good to see you have so much faith in your family," spat a low drawl from the doorway behind him. It took all of Draco's mental energy to keep himself from grimacing as he spun around to face his uncle. Rodolphus looked Draco in the eye for a few moments, then chuckled. He reached into the pocket on the inside of his jacket, and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one with his wand and haughtily returned the rest to the pocket whilst drawing it up to his crooked and chapped lips. Draco and Narcissa both watched closely.

"So, fucking Mudbloods, huh?" he said tauntingly.

"Mudblood," Draco corrected arrogantly. Rodolphus ignored him.

"What part of you thought that was a good idea?"

"My cock," Draco retorted impulsively.

"Excuse me!" Narcissa exclaimed, marching over to stand between the two men, looking at both with intense disapproval.

"Lovely idea, sister. You might do well to excuse yourself," Rodolphus responded smugly, slipping his fag back into his mouth as he looked back at her and later blowing out the smoke as he simultaneously contorted his lips into a devilish grin.

She pursed her lips, debating whether an argument could be worth it. It was technically more her house than his, even though he and his brother had a particular tendency to act as though they owned it, no doubt evolved from her sister's decision that all of Narcissa's property must naturally be hers as well; Bellatrix had acted like she owned the place from the very day she got out of Azkaban.

Narcissa thought the better of arguing with her brother-in-law, though, not wanting to push she and her husband onto even more dangerous ground. Draco was already there; now she needed to work on bringing him back, and she couldn't do that if Lucius was the only other Death Eater in the house who listened to her. She'd need to tread very carefully if she wanted all of them to make it to the end of the war. She sighed vehemently, then stormed past Rodolphus and rushed up the wrought-iron staircase to the fourth floor of the Manor.

"You reckless, greedy, immature bastard," Rodolphus chided Draco as he ground the cigarette butt into the floor. "You're seventeen now, supposed to be a man. How the hell do you expect the Dark Lord to trust you when you're running around behind all of our backs with Prince Potter's cronies?"

"We were not running around, Uncle," Draco scoffed. "Just sleeping together."

"Yeah?" Rodolphus grumbled, pulling the packet of cigarettes out of his pocket again and pulling two fags out. He patted his pocket haughtily after he shoved the packet back in, and tossed one of the fags to Draco.

"And what do you have," he continued as he lit his, "to show for it? What can you tell us about Potter?"

Draco Summoned his wand from the kitchen table, leaning his weight onto his right leg as he slid the fag between his lips, pressed the tip of his wand to its other end, and took the first drag.

"No questions asked," he conceded. "That's what the whole thing was. I doubt I heard her say anything other than 'oh, yes' more than a couple times except for when we were fighting with each other."

"So nothing, then. Absolutely nothing," Rodolphus summarised tersely. He rolled his eyes and sighed. "And here I thought I could help you keep your sorry ass alive, boy; but you can't even give me something worthwhile to work with."

"Well," Draco protested. "I don't know anything more about Potter, I give you that. Fell short on that one. But I could write an encyclopedia entry about Granger. She isn't hard to read once you figure out how."

As Rodolphus drew the fag from his mouth and blew out a puff of grey smoke, his lips twisted back into a pretentious grin.

**"You don't really mean** to tell me that you've spent this past year being Draco Malfoy's personal whore!" Molly screamed.

"I don't when you put it that way," Hermione groaned in protest, looking helplessly over at Arthur, Bill, and Fleur, thankful that they were the only witnesses.

"I mean, Molly," Arthur added after Hermione met his eyes, "it would be worse if they had been emotionally involved as well."

"Would it, Arthur? Would it?" his wife roared. "H- Hermione, dear, don't you want a real relationship? Don't you want someone to actually love you-"

"Of course I do. That's just...not what I was looking for in him. And we weren't in a relationship, we weren't dating, there was no pretense of that. I didn't ever think that- I just-"

"Gave up absolutely everything to him..."

"It's not like that! Mu-"

"Hermione, calm down," Bill said soothingly. "Mum, Dad, please," he looked at his parents expectantly. Arthur grabbed Molly's hand and kissed it, and they left the room. Molly broke down sobbing a moment later, and Hermione's own eyes were watering uncontrollably. She was wiping them when she felt Bill's arms gently hold her by her shoulders.

"You have to understand, you're like a daughter to her, she thinks of you as such. If you and Ginny were in each other's places she would react just the same way, 'Mione. She loves you dearly, we all do. The idea that he hurt you or was using you-"

"I was using him, too, though."

"I know, I know. That makes it harder, though. The argument's not as one-sided...and in the Wizarding World, well, Britain, at least, women are frowned upon for being...expressive of their sexuality. Your strength, your intelligence, your courage, are not the only reasons people see you as more innocent, less likely to put yourself in a situation like that."

"How come you understand, then?"

"Well-"

"That's Bill's greatest talent, didn't you know, understanding, empathy?" Fleur interjected, moving over to them and laying her right hand on Bill's shoulder, leaning into him from his left, and cupping Hermione's cheek with her left hand as Bill gave Hermione's shoulders a gentle squeeze and then removed his hands. He draped his left arm over Fleur.

"The shock will wear off sometime, love," she offered affectionately.

"And meanwhile?" Hermione whimpered.

"Be honest, be forward, be accepting, be righteous...stand on your feet. If you're adamant that you did nothing wrong and th're is no emotional relationship to speak of, people 'ill be more likely to believe you. Don' try to act like you're still a girl, now that you've shown everyone you've become a woman. You are a woman, zere should be no shame in acting like it." Fleur drew her hand back from Hermione's face as she spoke, wrapping that arm around Bill's chest. Hermione smiled weakly.

"Think you could help me with that?"

Fleur laughed lightly, a proud smile sweeping her face. "Of course."


	5. There Goes My Baby

_**[Warning: This chapter is a good bit longer than the others have been, and involves feelings. Also smoking and alcohol.]**_

**"Scandalous" by Mis-Teeq**

_So, so, so scandalous / you're dangerous / just get it up / the way you move / so scandalous /_  
_it's all about the two of us / a one night stand just ain't enough / I need some stimulation, baby /_  
_a little conversation, maybe / you got me spinning 'round like crazy / there goes my baby_  
_you know you wanna sing with us (baby) / that's why you know you should be scared of us (baby)_

_Non-stop looks to kill / straight talk, sex appeal / one touch gives me chills / and we ain't even close yet / _  
_rough neck all around / inking all over town / show me how you get down / 'cause we ain't even close yet_

_You got me feening and you got me feeling weak / listen as I speak 'cause I'm careful as I creep /_  
_you got me going crazy and you know I can't sleep / no fortune your moves and you hypnotise me / you got me trembling like a little baby girl / you're so special, you're like diamonds and pearls / _  
_you got me spinning and you got me in a twirl / you're my number one, baby and you come to rock my world_

_You're dangerous / just get it up / the way you move / so scandalous /_  
_it's all about the two of us / a one night stand just ain't enough / I need some stimulation, baby /_  
_a little conversation, maybe / you got me spinning 'round like crazy / there goes my baby_

_Scandalous (baby) / so scandalous (baby) / scandalous (baby) / so, so, so scandalous_

_Hot stuff, head to toe / where you go, no one knows / you smile playing the dough / and we ain't even close yet /_  
_solid as a rock / how many ways can you hit the spot? / show me what you got / 'cause we ain't even close yet_

_You got me feening and you got me feeling weak / listen as I speak 'cause I'm careful as I creep /_  
_you got me going crazy and you know I can't sleep / no fortune your moves and you hypnotise me / you got me trembling like a little baby girl / you're so special, you're like diamonds and pearls / _  
_you got me spinning and you got me in a twirl / you're my number one, baby and you come to rock my world_

_You're dangerous / just get it up / the way you move / so scandalous /_  
_it's all about the two of us / a one night stand just ain't enough / I need some stimulation, baby /_  
_a little conversation, maybe / you got me spinning 'round like crazy / there goes my baby_

_Scandalous (baby) / so scandalous (baby) / scandalous (baby) / so, so, so scandalous_

_A little conversation / goes a long, long way / show a little patience / that you are here to stay / __so show me that you're game, oh_

_You're dangerous / just get it up / the way you move / so scandalous /_  
_it's all about the two of us / a one night stand just ain't enough / I need some stimulation, baby /_  
_a little conversation, maybe / you got me spinning 'round like crazy / there goes my baby_  
_you're dangerous / just get it up / the way you move / so scandalous /_  
_it's all about the two of us / a one night stand just ain't enough / I need some stimulation, baby /_  
_a little conversation, maybe / you got me spinning 'round like crazy / there goes my baby_

**"Thank Merlin for that woman!"** Narcissa exclaimed as she raced back into her kitchen. "People might actually believe you! Rita is just so accommodating. She knew just what she needed to ask you to prove-"

"That Granger really is just the worthless slut she is," Rodolphus finished, making clear his intention of avoiding the topic. "Right, boy?"

"Hmm," Draco grunted, feigning agreement as he collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and watched his mother rush about the kitchen for a moment and then leave with his uncle, likely for the parlour or the dining room. Draco realised that he was going to need to wash his suit a couple times before he wore it again. Skeeter's perfume was probably lodged inside the fibres of his jacket, judging by how touchy-feely the woman was. He almost regretted his newfound self-control; a year earlier he would have promptly and rudely shoved her away if she had tried to greet him in public with an affectionate hug, but now he actually was starting to care more about actually upholding - and uplifting - his family's reputation, rather than just using it to manipulate people.

That was another thing about Hermione, of course: she didn't give a rat's arse how rich he was or what label his clothing was or anything like that and either rolled her eyes or slapped him if he tried to manipulate her. For a moment he was even more thankful that they hadn't made a good-faith effort at a legitimate relationship, because he surely would not have made the cut. He chided himself for even thinking about it that way. He'd reassured Rita Skeeter, as he had everyone else, including Voldemort himself, that his relationship with Hermione was solely sexual and that she was worth nothing to him. He was rather successful - more successful than he'd thought he would be, anyway - at convincing people of that. Of course, he still knew how to pull off his signature Malfoy air, and as long as he was talking to someone who didn't see through it - Hermione, for example, and sometimes his best mate, Blaise - the only person he seemed to have trouble convincing was himself. After an afternoon and evening of verbal abuse, he'd spent the better part of his restless night sorting through memories, trying to answer the implicit question of whether or not it was worth it. As much as he didn't want to, he seemed to feel that it was.

_I mean, the sex really was fantastic. That's got to count for something, right? It's not as though I actually want a relationship; it was a fling, at most. Granted it was a very long fling... _Draco startled at the sound of a coarse voice behind him.

"Visitor, Draco," he heard his uncle snarl. Draco cocked his head back, not wanting to move from his seat, and saw Blaise standing at the doorway as Rodolphus turned and strutted away.

**Hermione stared** at the ornate mirror, running her fingers along the plunging green neckline grazing her chest. She swirled around in a circle, the dress moving with her, still keeping her eyes on the mirror.

"I'm not sure I like this one," she groaned. Fleur walked up behind her, adjusting it around her shoulders and then grunting.

"Zis one does not fit you very well. Ginny, grab the next, will you?"

Ginny grumbled, sitting up from her spot on the king-size bed in the middle of the room and stepping over to the wardrobe. She grabbed a short orange dress, which Fleur immediately rejected, and returned for a skintight number covered in gold sequins. Fleur and Ginny helped Hermione slip out of the green dress and step into the gold one.

"Ooh," Tonks murmured from her seat in a large plush chair by the bed. Fleur and Ginny instantly agreed, smiling at their success before they even let Hermione turn around and get a look at herself.

**"Waiting for a formal invitation,** Zabini?" Draco quipped. "Get your ass over here."

"There's that polite host I've been looking for," Blaise jibed, closing the door behind him and strutting over to the seat across from Draco. They sat for a moment in silence, looking at each other expectantly.

"Granger," Blaise finally stated, with a hint of disbelief.

"Granger," Draco confirmed.

"Explain, please."

Draco sighed heavily, pretending to be slightly more frustrated than he was. Blaise scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"You know how Granger was my Potions tutor last year, right?"

"I thought she actually was your Potions tutor, mate."

"She was. Snape assigned her to me late September. Early November of last year, ya know, there was that fiasco with Daphne, and Granger teased me 'bout it. Let on that she knew more about snogging and sex than I knew, I didn't believe her, and I dared Granger to kiss me."

"And she went for it?"

Draco nodded, "And damn, did she kiss me! Apparently, muggle boys get after her, too, not just Gryffindors and Viktor Krum. I asked her about it later; she was gettin' more'n her fair share o' practise, almost all outside school. Did her a lot of good, too. So now we've been sleeping together for almost a year. Best sex I've ever had, always - even right after Dumbledore died. Neither of us were particularly enjoying the situation, but I ne- needed a good time, and she was still willing."

"Wasn't she part of the battle the night Dumbledore died, too?"

"Yeah. We fought each other, actually. Well, to be specific we really just sent a few curses. She was focused on the others, like all their people were, but she got me with a couple of them. Strong curses, too, like the ones Potter uses."

"Bet they both can use Unforgivables..."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Not even a little bit."

"Wonder you're still alive, mate."

"Eh, I never pissed her off that much. I mean we fought a lot, just about every time I was doing something that I shouldn't'a been - other than her, that is. I was honestly scared when she was caring for me in hospital."

"What, that she'd poison you?"

"More than that, I mean, she could've gotten Veritaserum or something and I wouldn't've had the slightest idea till it kicked in, and I was practically chained to the bed so it wasn't like I could've fought back if she cursed me."

"Did she?"

"What, curse me? Only a few times," Draco said as he watched Blaise fill two glasses with firewhiskey Summoned from the kitchen. He rolled his eyes.

"Yeah?" Blaise asked.

"Ya act like ya live here, mate."

"Ya gotta problem with that?"

"Ya don't live here," Draco grumbled.

"That's not my fault." Blaise slid one of the glasses over to Draco, who enthusiastically grabbed it and gulped down its contents.

"So, the real question, mate," Blaise began, pausing to allow for Draco's expected groaning. "You fancy her."

"Ya say that like it's a fact or something."

"Ya put forth far too much effort, Draco, to not like her even a little. If it were only about sex, you wouldn't have kept sleeping with her after we got outta school."

"Did I not mention that this was the best sex of my life?"

"You mentioned it, but to have even good sex you have to be vulnerable enough for that level of intimacy. Somehow, considering all the girls you've taken to bed, I doubt you'd be saying that it was the best sex of your life if you didn't get vulnerable with her, if there was no connection, no chemistry."

"Oh, there was chemistry all right, only it's just sexual chemistry. We don't get along outside of that."

"You don't have to get along with someone to have feelings for them, and you know that," Blaise sneered, drinking the last of his firewhiskey and refilling both glasses. "I mean, think, how was the snogging?"

"The snogging? Spectacular," Draco mumbled, a fag slipped in between his pale lips as he lit it.

**Tonks stood up** and joined the other women by the mirror.

"I think this is the one," Hermione announced gladly, and they all sighed of relief. Fleur and Ginny embraced each other in a short, rather sisterly hug.

"Do you want me to go get Remus?" Fleur asked Tonks, who nodded. Ginny collapsed into the chair that Tonks had been sitting in a moment after Fleur departed.

"You know, I think this whole situation is really doing wonders for the family bonding process," Tonks remarked to Remus as he walked into the room and gingerly shut the door.

"You don't say?" he replied, a twinkle in his eyes as he kissed her cheek.

"Bill and Charlie are getting time with their younger brothers, everyone is taking care of Teddy, Molly's teaching Fred, George and Percy how to cook, and now, Ginny and Fleur are actually starting to act like they're sisters..."

"Oh?" Remus could not have hidden his pleasant surprise if he had tried. Ginny chuckled.

"Yeah," she admitted, and the four of them laughed heartily.

"Well, don't you look beautiful?" Remus eventually exclaimed to Hermione, pulling her into a hug.

"Thank you," she grinned. "I just hope I'll feel comfortable wearing it tomorrow."

"Oh, don't worry, sweetie. You'll be well prepared, and we'll all be there, you know."

"And most likely, so will the Malfoys! And his aunt and uncle were there this morning - imagine if they were there for my interview, too! Who knows what could happen then!"

"I'm sure they know to handle themselves in public well enough not to start something at a time like that. Besides, they were there for his, and everyone expects more from him than from you, right?"

"Yeah, but we can't go by that. That's the whole idea," Ginny interjected. "The problem is that people think Hermione's a sweet, innocent, little girl who blushes at the idea of any of that, rather than a grown woman who is well aware of how her sexual organs function."

After a moment of silence, she added, "Same with me. I mean, I am sixteen, for Merlin's sake..."

"We know. But you and Harry both have better, more important things to focus on right now," Tonks responded, and Ginny scoffed.

"Yes, we have Teddy, but we are grown, married, and able to spread our time to include raising a child. Whereas you're still in school and Harry's the bloody Boy Who Lived," Tonks continued gently, placing a tender hand underneath Ginny's chin although Ginny refused to meet her eyes.

"Gin, come on," Hermione said. "Tonks has a point, you know. And imagine if-" She stopped herself, but Ginny knew where she had been headed.

"Imagine what? Imagine if Harry died?" Ginny screamed, storming out of the room, rushing into the bathroom, and slamming the door. Remus, Tonks, and Hermione only heard her cry for a second before they heard a low telltale buzzing noise instead.

"Let's move on to the questions you came up with, shall we?" Hermione finally grumbled, and Remus pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He walked over to the head of the bed and took a seat leaning against the middle of the headboard, then motioned for she and Tonks to join him.

**Blaise stretched his hand out**, and Draco shoved the packet of cigarettes to the other side of the table. After lighting his own fag and throwing the rest back to Draco, Blaise looked up at the distracted blond with raised eyebrows.

"If you went back to last November, say, and you knew this would all get out, would you still go with her?"

"Okay, firstly, we were not 'going together.' There was nothing that resembled dating going on between Granger and I-"

"Except meeting up regularly and having passionate sex-"

"We were not dating, Blaise," Draco insisted adamantly.

"Okay," Blaise contended, not convinced, and took a swig of his firewhiskey. "And where does the War come in? What's the plan on that?"

"We were not dating."

"You also weren't answering my question."

"No special treatment. The only thing is, now I don't want to kill her. So I'm not sure if I could do that if I were told to, but-"

"You wouldn't have been able to in the first place, Draco."

"Beg your pardon! Besides, I can torture her perfectly fine, Zabini-"

"Torturing someone and ending their life are two different things, which would be why you're only able to do one of them. You can justify torture, it's justified, but killing someone when you realise that they're human and you're human and they have family and people they love and that love them and they're fighting for something..."

"It's not justifiable."

"You can't get information or resources from someone by killing them. And when you see some value in their life, it would take a lot to make yourself-"

"Then how do you think Snape did it? He loved Dumbledore, worked for him for years, spied for him, everything, and he's the one who killed him."

"He made deals with more than one person that he would, and one of those people was Dumbledore himself. And Snape cares about you, too, and he promised your mother he'd do it if you couldn't, right? Didn't he ultimately tell you about all that?"

"He did, but still..."

"He's a tortured soul, Draco. He's a broken man. He's able to stand up in front of everybody, every day, and be a loyal Death Eater, when he's still in love with a muggleborn girl who died, and has been all along. You've got to think he thinks about that every time he sees Granger. His girl was feisty and smart, too, right?"

"I don't understand it. How he let her go. And don't get any ideas. Granger is not 'my girl'-"

"Maybe someday we'll ask him. In the meantime I think we need to focus on keeping you from getting yourself killed."

"Why is it that everyone seems to think I need help staying alive?"

"Because you act like you have a death wish, Draco," Blaise barked.

"So what if I do?" Draco jeered, but the slight crack in his voice as he shoved himself up from his seat and strode over to the door gave Blaise a glimpse of his vulnerability. Draco yanked the snake of silver that served as the handle of the heavy door out to the corridor. He held it open, his lacklustre eyes giving Blaise his cue to leave. Blaise sighed heavily, then left the firewhiskey on the table as he slid past Draco and down the hall. Draco followed him with his eyes until Blaise's dark brown skin was no longer visible before stumbling back into the kitchen and promptly emptying the firewhiskey bottle.

**Hermione took a deep breath** as she unzipped the gold dress and slid it off her shoulders and back onto its hanger. The room was a bit chilly, but she stood stone still, trapped in thought as she examined her shivering naked body up close in the mirror. She really _was_ more attractive than she liked to let on. Of course, in the muggle world she acted differently, and even at Hogwarts, there had been parties and such when she'd worn dresses, but to her knowledge only boys she'd known were interested paid any attention, except for once when Harry got angry with a rather drunk Cormac, for making an overt, unsuccessful, and rather distasteful attempt at convincing Hermione to sleep with him. Even then, it was Harry, who probably couldn't look at her as a sexual object if he tried, and knew her well enough not to really judge what she wore in the first place. She knew the only reason he really ended up getting angry about the dress was that it was one of the dresses she shared with Ginny, and he was peeved by the memory of the four guys who had flirted openly with Ginny when she had worn it. She and Ginny sent the dress home to the Burrow the following morning. Hermione had, additionally, worn more revealing clothes for a part of her sixth year, but she wasn't fond of showing off and once Draco started getting possessive-

She clenched her eyes shut, trying not to think about his concerning behaviour the previous year. They had gotten in multiple arguments about the fact that they were very much not together, since Draco seemingly believed that their lack of romantic attachment did not mean that she was allowed to sleep with other men. To a point it made sense - she wasn't keen on the idea of consistently sharing her sexual partner with Pansy Parkinson - but Draco, especially inside his head, was such an intense person, that it often seemed that he considered Hermione to be 'his' in much the same way that a legitimate suitor would.

Hermione dragged her finger along her right hip, tenderly massaging her fingertips over the only scar she had from their sexual encounters. She had a few others, from fights they'd had, but Draco had purposely left this one. He had a couple, too, she remembered, as she recalled the memory of his teeth piercing her skin, her hips bucking, his lips travelling down her magically-shaven skin, his hands pawing at her, his tongue- Merlin, the things he could do with his _tongue_- she subconsciously bit her lower lip, becoming aroused at the vivid memories.

_But was it worth it?_ she forced herself to question whilst she continued to get ready for bed. As she laid her whirling head down onto the plush pink pillow Fleur had left on the bed, she sighed deeply, knowing that the thoughts echoing through her mind were in agreement that it had been well worth it.


	6. Love's Forgotten Me

**"Decoy" by Paramore**

_Close your eyes and make believe / this is where you want to be / forgetting all the memories / _

_try to forget love / cause love's forgotten me / _

_well, hey, hey baby / it's never too late / pretty soon you won't remember a thing / _

_and I'll be distant / the stars reminiscing / your heart's been wasted on me_

_You've never been so used / __as I'm using you / abusing you / my little decoy / _

_don't look so blue / you should've seen right through / I'm using you / my little decoy / my little decoy_

_Live your life inside a dream / time is changing everything / forgetting all the memories / _

_and I'm forced into you / just cause you're into me / _

_well, hey, hey baby / it's never too late / when I'm gone you won't remember a thing / _

_but I can't stay and you know I won't wait / I was gone from the very first day_

_You've never been so used / as I'm using you / abusing you / my little decoy / _

_don't look so blue / you should've seen right through / I'm using you / my little decoy / my little decoy_

_Oh, oh, oh / I'm not sorry at all (not sorry at all, no, I'm not sorry, no) / _

_I won't be sorry at all (not sorry at all, not sorry, no) / I'd do it over again_

_Don't look so blue / you should've seen right through / I'm using you / my little decoy / _

_you've never been so used / as I'm using you / abusing you / my little decoy_

**Hermione took a deep breath,** then pushed open the heavy door and stepped into the atrium. Immediately all eyes were on her, and she had to force herself to keep her own eyes open while dozens of cameras snapped at her. Fleur's scintillating gold dress hugged her body and her hair was done up, and while she felt uncomfortable she was able to steady herself, partly by focusing on the tender, supportive faces which had shoved their way to the front of the gathering crowd: Remus and Tonks, the Lovegoods, Neville, all of the Weasleys, and even McGonagall, were there to give a reassuring smile. When Hermione reached the platform set up in front of the fountain, she accepted the hand offered to her and stepped up onto it, greeted within seconds by a glowing Rita Skeeter who grabbed her and held on tightly for more than thirty seconds as though for dear life.

"Miss Granger..." Skeeter began. "_Pity_ we haven't had a chance to catch up in a few years. I certainly hope I'm up to date enough. Please, come, sit." She gestured Hermione to the large armchairs in the middle of the platform.

_Odd setup for a press conference,_ Hermione thought as she gingerly sat down next to the other woman, who seemed to insist on practically posing for the cameras. _Thank Merlin it's only half an hour..._

"So, Hermione, I had the pleasure of speaking with Draco Malfoy yesterday, to follow up on the article I wrote two days ago, and as I'm sure you know, I'd love to do the same with you."

Hermione nodded, motioning to Skeeter to continue.

"So, let's not waste one minute: do you think this relationship will cause a conflict of interest for you this coming year?"

Hermione forced a sharp laugh.

"You are sorely mistaken. There is no relationship."

"Of course there's a relationship! He was seen leaving your home, darling. Don't try to make me believe he was there to study or something; I'm not a fool."

Hermione sniggered, "Let me rephrase that: I mean that there's no romantic relationship. There are no emotions in the way of anything. It was _purely_ physical."

The entire room seemed to pause for a moment as the over-animated Rita Skeeter processed what Hermione had said.

"Purely...physical?" she asked curiously. "In other words, then, it was purely sexual?"

"Did you and Malfoy not establish this yesterday?" Hermione replied bitterly.

"Still on surname basis, I see," Skeeter remarked with surprise.

"No reason not to be."

"Is that so?" Skeeter looked at Hermione sceptically.

"What, do you think I'm too 'clean' for an impersonal, entirely sexual endeavour? Too innocent, too responsible?"

"I am _not_ the only one, I assure you."

"And I assure_ you_ that my capabilities as a student and as a witch are not the only ones I possess."

"Am I to assume that one of those capabilities is to manipulate people's alliances?"

"Neither of us had our alliances manipulated at all. It didn't matter what our alliances were; we didn't spend time talking anyway."

"So Malfoy was..."

"Nothing but a good lay and an arrogant boy," Hermione quipped, and an air of surprise seemed almost to sweep over the room. He'd been thoroughly embarassed at being assigned a tutor in Potions, so he'd only told a select few, and Hermione wasn't going to be the one to mention it with the entire Wizarding World as witness. It simply wasn't hers to tell. Besides, it would help her case for it to get out that they were spending time alone together in the library almost every night of their sixth year. It wouldn't help Draco, of course, but that wasn't Hermione's problem.

"One whom you let into your home - in the muggle world," Skeeter pushed immediately.

"And that is so significant because...?"

"His being a - a Death Eater, as was discovered earlier this summer...I mean, did you not worry about your parents, or your belongings in the house-"

"Firstly, Malfoy was not there to have any interaction whatsoever with my parents, and he never did. Secondly, I am fully capable of defending myself, my parents and my property, Miss Skeeter. At this point in time I am the only person who knows fully of my parents' sheer existence; I am not concerned for their safety. As for belongings, that house was a normal muggle home just like any other, except for the few times I had a Daily Prophet _- or a Quibbler -_ there to read. There wasn't anything to worry about, no sensitive information or precious spellbooks."

"So you do not feel threatened by that level of intimacy with someone who-"

"is essentially my enemy," Hermione finished. "No."

Skeeter's eyebrows raised higher than Hermione thought possible as the woman opened her mouth to speak again, but Skeeter seemed not to be able to say what she had planned to, and Hermione used her speechlessness to continue speaking herself.

"I have no reason to feel threatened. Malfoy knows nothing, as far as important information is concerned. He is not a threat to me. He is someone that I used. It just so happens that his father was a Death Eater in the First Wizarding War, and thus it follows that they both are in the Second - regardless of his own competency with the magic he's being expected to use. My parents, conversely, have had nothing to do with magic for most of their lives, but that has not stopped me from excelling as I have - a level dramatically higher than he, I might add. Draco Malfoy is not my equal in battle. Lucius Malfoy is not my equal in battle. I have held my own against his aunt, more than once, and there's not a person in this room who believes that she has any qualms to speak of," she professed confidently. Right past the photographers stood Ginny and Luna, offering their support with their facial expressions. Far at the opposite edge of the crowd she could see Draco and his family watching as her interview proceeded for the next twenty minutes. Narcissa looked especially pained, Lucius was overtly embarrassed, Bellatrix wore an expression of disgust and hatred, marred slightly by the offhand compliment, and Draco and Rodolphus seemed only to be trying to keep their faces as straight as possible. Narcissa's hand tightly gripped her sister's arm, silently ordering Bellatrix to stay put and somehow being respected.

**Immediately upon reaching home** after Hermione's interview, Draco grabbed a phial of Sleeping Draught, chugging it then slipping the small bottle into his jacket pocket.**  
**

_I haven't gotten any sleep worth mentioning in the past week! Merlin, why does everybody have to be so on my back about this Granger thing? I mean, she was upfront about it, too, and no one even saw that coming in the first place._

He stood in silence by the kitchen sink, physically trying to shake his thoughts from his mind.

_They can't possibly know that I'm not being entirely truthful. They have no idea about anything that happened, even, and our stories match. Maybe it's the fact that I was actually fairly complimentary of her...I was trying to say it like it was a bad thing, but that's damn near impossible when Rita Skeeter is asking you why you were attracted to someone. Funny she didn't really ask Hermione that. You'd think people would question that more, what with her perfection complex and all, and my being an arrogant arse of a Death Eater._

Right as his mother stormed into the kitchen from one end, he shoved open the other door and rushed up to his bedroom. He grabbed a packet of fags from his bedside table and lit one, reclining in his bed as he Summoned some of his personal firewhiskey stash from his cabinet.

**"Well, unfortunately,** that's all the time I have with you today, dear," Rita Skeeter sighed dramatically as she stood from her chair and gestured for Hermione to get up as well. Hermione held her head even higher and elegantly rose from the seat, half-heartedly pulling her almost skintight dress down closer to her knees from the position it had migrated to at the very top of her thighs.

"Oh, I forgot to mention, I absolutely adore your outfit! You look very...attractive," Skeeter exclaimed as Hermione stepped down from the platform. Hermione turned back towards her, making sure to keep her smile plastered on her face.

"Thank you! I'm rather fond of it myself. My favourite part is the zipper," she responded coyly, running her fingers down the middle of her bust along the zipper.

"Well, if I have one last thing to say - of course I never really do, but you know what I mean, dear - then I must say that I cannot blame Master Malfoy for any interest in you."

Hermione's smile morphed into more of a sly grin, and she sniggered to herself.

"_I_ certainly don't," she said in the most suggestive tone she could manage, and promptly strode from the edge of the platform, gesturing to Ginny and Luna to follow her back through the fireplace; they were standing in front of the Burrow before any of them had time to say a word to one another, all the others following behind.

**Draco drained the last drop **of his firewhiskey stash with a loud growl. He'd slowed down a good bit on the last couple, and his intoxication was already beginning to wear off. The sun was still shining brightly through his window, too, so he knew that it likely wasn't even past four o'clock. His limbs were starting to feel heavier, and he needed something more. He shoved himself up from his bed into the freezing air of his room, speedily redressing himself from only his slacks and undershirt. He lifted the silencing charms on his room for a moment as he pressed his ear to the wall adjacent to the stairwell down into the rest of the massive building. Hearing nothing, he cast the spells again and opened the door out to the corridor.

With a quick glance to his right to ensure there was no one coming up the stairs, Draco crept through the corridor into his parents' wing of the house. His father neglected to use any advanced magic to protect anything of his, so with all the practise Draco had accumulated over the past couple of years, raiding Lucius' liquor cabinet was a task so easy it was almost painful. Almost. Draco returned to his room along with nearly half the cabinet's original contents.

_If only the hardest decision I had to make was which alcohol to drink first...imagine how fantastic life could be!_

**"How did that even start** in the first place?" Ginny inquired curiously. "I mean-"

"It's a long story," Hermione contested.

"We've got all night, really," Luna said gently. "And thank you for the comment about the Quibbler. Rita Skeeter was absolutely mortified, and on top of that, it probably made my father's week."

"What are friends for, if not for increasing publicity for each other's father's news publications?" Hermione replied jokingly, and Luna laughed along with her.

"Really, though, 'Mione," Ginny pushed. "I actually want to talk about this."

"Well, I don't. I want this whole thing to just be over already."

"What thing? The you-being-with-Malfoy thing or the everybody-freaking-out-about-you-being-with-Malfoy thing?"

"The me-being-with-Malfoy thing was already over, Gin."

"Okay," Ginny said, not convinced. Hermione glared at her, then sighed.

"You_ really_ want me to tell you about it?" she groaned, and Ginny nodded in reply, Luna giving a smile of agreement when Hermione looked over towards her.

"Okay, then, I guess," Hermione said. "I told you how I was his Potions tutor last term, right?" Ginny and Luna nodded.

"And you know about the whole Daphne situation-"

"All the Slytherin girls mauling each other for a chance to sleep with him-" Ginny sneered.

"I'd bet every student in the school knows about that," Luna added.

"Well, the plan we made when Snape first assigned me to tutor him, was to meet up to study every night in the back of the library - Dra- Malfoy didn't want to risk anyone finding out he needed a tutor unless he told them personally - and we met every school night in October. Then there was that night early November, when he slept with Daphne, and I was in the library just working by myself that night. The next night he showed up, though, and I made some remarks about it, of course. It got into this whole argument about whether or not I knew how to snog, and, well-"

"That worked out well," Ginny said sarcastically.

"So you slept together, just like that?" Luna asked in awe.

"No, no, we didn't sleep together then. Well, not that night, although we got into the snogging."

"How into-" Ginny started.

"By the time the library closed two and half hours after we started, I was sitting on the table without my sweater and he was right in front of me, no jacket, no tie."

"Your legs wrapped around his backside and everything?"

Luna looked at Ginny quizzically as Hermione nodded. Ginny noticed out of the corner of her eye and turned her head back towards Luna.

"You've never snogged anyone, have you, Luna?"

Luna shook her head quickly. "That's common, then?"

Hermione and Ginny both nodded again, and Luna seemed to disappear into her own consideration for a moment.

"Have you and Harry..."

"Yes," Ginny said, grimacing internally at the maternally appalled expression on Hermione's face.

"Already?" Hermione groaned.

"You're one to talk!" Ginny retorted.

"You're in an actual relationship, Ginny."

"I am quite aware of that, believe it or not."

"I just don't want you two going too quickly, Gin."

"We're not officially sleeping together or anything, we just- wanted to have sex at least once before he left, just- just in case he doesn't-" Ginny choked up. Luna gently ran her fingers along Ginny's spine, and Ginny affectionately laid back onto her shoulder. Hermione lightly placed a hand on top of Ginny's.

**Draco's head throbbed** as he became more and more exhausted, dedicating himself to finishing the fag he was working on and the bottle of vodka before he fell entirely asleep. His body collapsed continually into his bed as his mind darted between memories. Seconds after his final gulp of vodka, he was lost to the memory of the previous November, recreating his first kiss with Hermione within his dream.

**"He'll make it, Gin.** You'll see," Hermione contested. All three girls jumped at the knock on the door.

"It's open," Luna said, and Fleur gingerly opened the door, a lively smile on her face.

"He's here," she said.

"But Luna and I were supposed to go-" Hermione said protestingly.

"You all were huddled up here, they decided it would be best just to go, quickly and without any fuss."

"And everyone's all right?" Ginny anxiously asked, already up from her seat, ready to fling the door open.

"Just about. Go on, you girls see for yourself." Fleur held the door open and the three younger women followed her down the stairs and into the living room. Harry's eyes lit up at the sight of Ginny, and she practically flew into his arms, startling the distracted crowd gathered in the room. Luna and Hermione smiled at each other.

"Mad-Eye and Hedwig," Hermione heard Bill say softly to his father, who nodded solemnly. "Only significant injury is George's ear."

"Mad-Eye's dead?" Hermione stammered mournfully, a look of grief striking her face even as she and Ron embraced. Bill sorrowfully affirmed her enquiry. "How?"

"He was with Mundungus in the rear. We were, as we expected, attacked...Mundungus Disapparated as soon as he saw Him."

"Vol- He was there?" she screamed, all eyes turning subtly to Harry, much to his chagrin.

"Just about got us, too," Harry responded before anyone else got the chance. "He knew which one was me because of Hedwig. The Death Eaters were trying to figure out which Harry was real, and they couldn't tell for a stretch, but as soon as Voldemort got somewhat close to me Hedwig flew over, trying to protect me, and He knew that I was with Hagrid. Don't know why the bastard felt the need to kill her, too, but I guess that's just what He does."

"We shook 'em off, though, made out all right, all th' rest o' us," Hagrid assured her. "George's lost 'n ear, but Molly and Tonks 've got 'im now an' he can still hear clear as day through the other 'un."

"Oh, wouldn't you wanna know who else was there?" Ron began, partly teasing, trying to lighten the mood a bit, and partly speaking from his residual resentment.

"No, I wouldn't, thank you very much. I have no wish to be aware of what he's doing."

"All right then..."

"Ron..." Bill warned.

"What? Are we supposed to just forget about this whole thing?"

"That's EXACTLY what you're expected to do, Ronald!" Hermione shouted, turning to go back upstairs. Luna stopped her before she reached the staircase with a gentle but firm grasp of her hand, simultaneously giving Ron a stern look of disapproval. One nod from Arthur, though, signaled to both she and Hermione that the latter was allowed to return to the bedroom she had been using, and Luna loosed her grip to let Hermione slip up the staircase. Being the only person close to the staircase, she was also the only person who heard Hermione break down crying as she raced up the stairs and into the room.


	7. You Will Drive Me Crazy, Baby

**"Sleep Together" by Garbage**

_I got you crawling up a mountain / hanging 'round my neck /_

_I got you twisted 'round my finger / crawling 'round my legs /_

_the emptiness / the craziness / satisfy this hungriness / darling / how would it feel?_

_If we sleep together / will you like me better / if we come together / we'll go down forever /_

_if we sleep together / will I like you better / if we come together / prove it now or never_

_Make me a pretty person / make me / feel like I belong /_

_make me hard and make me happy / make me beautiful /_

_the emptiness / the craziness / satisfy this hungriness / darling / how would it feel?_

_If we sleep together / will you like me better / if we come together / we'll go down forever /_

_if we sleep together / will I like you better / if we come together / prove it now or never /_

_if we sleep together / nothing satisfies me, baby / if we sleep together / I'll wear something pretty, baby /_

_if we sleep together / give me what I crave now, baby / if we sleep together / save the rest for later, baby /_

_if we sleep together / you will drive me crazy, baby / if we sleep together / I save it all for you, my baby /_

_if we sleep together / if we sleep together_

**The temperature in Draco's bedroom **fluctuated throughout the rest of the afternoon, evening and night, the recently recruited dementors wandering aimlessly around the Malfoy property, coating solid surfaces in thick layers of ice as they passed by. It wasn't as though there was much happiness to suck. The Manor was a refuge for Death Eaters, most of whom had spent at least a few years in Azkaban. The few times Draco awoke shivering, he simply could not muster the energy necessary to reach his wand and perform a warming charm.

Every time he fell back asleep, he returned to his same dream: 6 November 1996. It was a Wednesday. He'd skipped out on his tutoring session with Granger the previous evening to spend it having mediocre sex with Daphne Greengrass and consequently trying to handle a flock of Slytherin girls, all of whom seemed to believe they were meant to be with him. Wednesday night he went to meet with Granger in the library as he was supposed to, and that evening- that evening was when everything started. That evening was the first time his assumptions about her were truly shattered - not just shaken, but shattered. That evening was the first time he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her closer, watched in awe as she slid her sweater over her head, said that he wanted her, that he wanted to be with her. That evening was the first time she seemed really human in his mind, rather than just a prudish Gryffindor mudblood who was too smart and too confident for her own good. He even called her babe. Granted that in context he could have said it to any other girl, it highlighted how he really saw her as a girl for the first time, as a sexual being, even though that later crossed into seeing her as a sexual object as well.

He still couldn't really get over the idea that the last time they'd slept together was really the last. That evening had kicked off a seven-month-long illicit sexual...thing. He wasn't sure what to call it at this point. If it wasn't a relationship, wasn't a romance...he'd used the word fling but it just didn't fit the situation quite right. "The Granger Thing." That's what his most amourous, most passionate, most intense, series of sexual experiences shared with one person had become. It couldn't be special any more, now that everyone knew. He couldn't hold it as anything mildly important to him. He just couldn't. Not if he wanted to keep his sense of self-preservation at least somewhat intact.

Even as his thoughts swirled violently around in his consciousness, his sleeping brain continued to return him to the vivid memory.

**Luna rapped on the door,** her heart burning at the groans she received as a response.

"'Mione, open the door. I want to talk to you."

"I'm not talking about this, Luna. I'm not talking about this any more."

"You're still thinking about it, though, so you should talk about it. Come on, I'm not going to judge you or anything, 'Mione."

There was a pregnant pause, the moment swelling with silence, blowing up like a balloon the longer the two went without speaking. Eventually the door cracked open the littlest bit, showing only Hermione's eyes from the slit between it and the doorframe.

"I'm not going to ask, because I know you're not okay, Hermione, and I know you'd say you were. I don't particularly care what your feelings are about this whole thing, or Malfoy, or Ginny and Harry...I just want to know that you're taking care of yourself, and not talking about how you're feeling when you're feeling somehow down, isn't taking care of yourself."

Hermione sighed deeply.

"See, I don't even think I know what I feel about it any more," she admitted.

"Well, that's all right, too. You're feeling something, aren't you? That's what's important. The word you use for it doesn't matter. Not really."

Hermione slid the door open widely enough for Luna to slide into the room.

"I don't really want to talk...but could you just...stay here? Stay in here with me for the night? Just so I'm not..."

"Alone."

Luna pulled Hermione into a tight hug.

"You're never alone."

_**Draco groaned as he strode**__ into the library, making his way through the aisles as far as possible from the door and laying his books down on their usual table. He was beyond frustrated with his predicament. What was the point of mindless sex if the sex wasn't worth a knut? Not that he was paying, but the point remained. And then there was Pansy. Jaded, jealous, juvenile Pansy Parkinson, to whom Draco's affection meant the world. The girl would do just about anything to feel like he cared about her. It was rather sad, really, especially as the number was growing. Daphne was getting obsessive, too, Astoria and her friends had always been interested, but none of them could so much as kiss worth a damn. Originally it had been fun, but all it was now was drama._

_"Of course I have to answer to Granger at this point in my life now, too, don't I? You know your girl problems are out of hand when even your marks are at their mercy," he thought._

_"Missed you yesterday, Malfoy," Hermione sneered as he collapsed into the chair across from her._

_"Of course you did, Granger. How couldn't you miss me?" he retorted._

_"Well for one, you are an arrogant, lazy, greedy arse."_

_"And you missed me anyway!"_

_"Do you want my help or not, Malfoy?"_

_"Want and need are two very different things, Granger," Draco replied bitterly. "Yesterday I was busy."_

_"Have a good night?" she jeered, knowing that he had spent the previous evening having his sexual desires met by an extremely willing Daphne Greengrass._

_"Not really, actually."_

_"No?"_

_"No...it was pretty terrible, really."_

_"You snogged and/or screwed a hot girl, Malfoy. A hot girl who is so completely into you that she may only be matched by Pansy Parkinson and there may not be words yet invented to describe the level of obsession over you which they both harbour. What's so bad about that?"_

_"You wouldn't understand," Draco sighed, reaching for his Potions book, but she slapped his hand and he withdrew, giving her a confused look. She scoffed._

_"You think I'm a prude, don't you?"_

_"Granger, I know you are."_

_"Then you don't know anything about me."_

_"Oh, yeah? How is that?"_

_"Let's just say...that if that were me last night, you would have had a good time."_

_"Ha! You're lying, Granger. I'd say you had to prove it, but it's not like you actually would. I doubt you even know how to give a good snogging!"_

_She scoffed again, her face contorting to display the offence she took at his remark as she stood up from her seat and leaned up against the bookshelf behind her._

_"Wanna bet?" she objected, being sure to lower her voice after realising that they were in the library. The hundreds of shelves separating them from the rest of the library's current occupants did not guarantee that no one would hear them if they were to speak too loudly. Draco scoffed, but pulled his wand from his pocket and quickly cast Muffliato around the shelves surrounding them._

_"Are you actually saying you would?" he asked, trying pitifully to hide his mounting curiosity._

_"That depends."_

_"On what?"_

_"Whether you're interested and why."_

_"Oh, why, now? Getting detailed here."_

_"I'm not one of your desperate little Slytherin whores, Malfoy. I have preferences and needs and wants, and your pleasure and acceptance don't make any of those lists."_

_"And yet...you're here."_

_"I'm your Potions tutor, Malfoy. This is the library. We're supposed to be studying."_

_"No, you're supposed to be tutoring me, and I'm supposed to be pretending to listen to you while actually making a shoddy attempt at getting you to take your skirt off," Draco countered, pushing himself up from his chair and turning to face her entirely._

_"Congratulations, then, you're doing what you're supposed to be - for once," she jeered with expertly feigned enthusiasm._

_"Tables really are turning, huh? Because you aren't - for once."_

_"I'm taking a break from being my usual perfect self, if you don't mind."_

_"Only if you're a good kisser. Otherwise I'll mind."_

_He walked over to the bookshelf, standing very close to her and leaning against the shelf by her left shoulder. She looked over at him sceptically, and almost jumped at the sudden grip of his hand on her hip, slid up under her sweater and touching her bare skin right at the bottom of her waist. She smirked, pushing herself off of the bookshelf and whirling around to face him. She immediately reached up to his neck, her palms resting on his cheeks and then his forearms as she pulled him down into her and kissed him. His left hand still at her hip, his right grabbed her by her neck, entangling his fingers in her hair as he pulled her in even closer with both hands, so that the entire fronts of their bodies were touching._

_Their embrace continually deepened, an impassioned competition between them for both power and pleasure which ended with Hermione sitting on the edge of the table, Draco pressed tightly against her, and her calfs wrapped around the backs of his thighs, with her sweater and his jacket and tie next to her on the table. They split apart only at the sound of Madame Pince's voice ricocheting throughout the room, magically amplified and alerting the students that the library was about to close. Almost as soon as the announcement was over, they broke into disbelieving laughter as they started to gather their things. Draco watched studiously as Hermione slipped her maroon sweater back over her head and readjusted it._

_"So now you're paying attention?" she groaned teasingly as she noticed how his eyes were practically glued to her, her seductive leer still lingering across her face._

_"Give me something that I want to pay attention to, and I'm perfectly attentive, Granger."_

_"And what is it about brewed beverages that alter a person's state of mind that doesn't pique your interest?"_

_"Hmmm...never thought of potions that way."_

_"Really?" Hermione condescended, making it plainly obvious that she was not convinced._

_"No, of course I have. I just don't find Potions as a subject all that interesting."_

_Hermione rolled her eyes._

_"Sorry I'm not as perfect as you are, Granger," Draco sneered. "Maybe you can give me some pointers this year."_

_"That information is highly confidential, Malfoy. You'll have to earn it."_

_Draco finished cinching his tie just as Hermione put the last of her books into her bag, and stepped over behind her, standing close to her back and looking over her shoulder. He grabbed her gently by her forearms, eliciting an expression of confusion as well as gratification as he planted light kisses along her right shoulder. He kept his lips pressed to her neck for longer, leaning further into her and whispering in her ear._

_"Have sex with me."_

_Hermione stood still for a moment, and Draco could tell that she was clenching her teeth._

_"Why?"_

_"I need a reason?"_

_"I'm not a whore, and I don't put out for the sake of putting out, Malfoy."_

_"So 'because I want to' isn't a valid excuse?" Draco whispered. Her right hand rested limply at her hip and he covered it with his own, linking their fingers as he gently tightened his grip. Her skirt rode up her leg, falling back into place when Draco released some of the pressure on her hand. He continued to hold her hand nonetheless._

_"How _badly_ do you want to?" she whispered back, trying to ignore his chin as it remained resting on her shoulder._

_"What do you want, Granger?" he groaned._

_"Pay attention and do your bloody homework."_

_"That's all?"_

_"As long as you accept that I will hurt you very badly if you tell anyone about this."_

_Draco sighed, mockingly displaying great displeasure._

_"Anything, Granger."_

_"Anything? Pity. I should have asked for something more substantial before you agreed," she sniggered, wheeling around in between Draco and the table, pressed up against it again. She chuckled as she slid her book bag over her shoulder._

_"Well? We should be leaving, unless we want to be locked in here tonight."_

_Draco looked at her suggestively._

_"The faculty do rounds, you know. They'd find us at some point. Besides, they'd know we weren't in bed, especially as we're prefects. And _some_ of us take that duty seriously."_

_"And here I thought you were on hiatus from being your perfect Granger self."_

_"Only for about- two and a half hours."_

_"No wonder you're always so stressed. I can help with that, you know-"_

_"Oh, just put your jacket back on and get back to your dungeon already, will you? I've boosted your ego quite enough for one night."_

_Hermione pushed past him, stopping at the edge of the aisle and turning back towards him expectantly. He grumbled, but slipped his jacket on and scooped up his books. They walked in almost complete silence until the stairs at the other end of the floor, when they both began to head their separate paths. Draco stopped himself before he reached the stairs and sped over to the stairs heading up to the higher floors, pulling Hermione back into him with his arm around her waist. She smiled at first, but shifted to a sterner look after a couple seconds, stopping her momentum towards him with her arms laid upon his chest._

_"Tomorrow, after supper. Room of Regalement," Draco whispered authoritatively._

_"Is that what you call it?" she laughed quietly._

_"I call it whatever I think fits the situation best."_

_"And 'regalement' fits this situation better than all the other-"_

_"Granger, really?"_

_"I'm just saying."_

_"Well stop saying and start playing, babe."_

_Draco pulled her even closer and pressed his lips against hers. Hermione gripped his jacket collar, holding him in place for a couple of minutes as they shared the last kiss of the night._


	8. How to Make Me Smile

**"Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera**

_Just shoot for the stars / if it feels right / and aim for my heart / if you feel like / and take me away / and make it okay / I swear I'll behave_  
_you wanted control / so we waited / I put on a show / now I make it / you say I'm a kid / my ego is big / I don't give a shit / and it goes like this_

_Take me by the tongue / and I'll know you / kiss me 'til you're drunk / and I'll show you / _  
_all the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_  
_I don't need to try to control you / look into my eyes and I'll own you / _  
_with them moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_

_Maybe it's hard / when you feel like you're broken and scarred / nothing feels right / _  
_but when you're with me / I'll make you believe / that I've got the key _  
_oh / so get in the car / we can ride it / wherever you want / get inside it / _  
_and you want to steer / but I'm shifting gears / I'll take it from here / and it goes like this_

_Take me by the tongue / and I'll know you / kiss me 'til you're drunk / and I'll show you / _  
_all the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_  
_I don't need to try to control you / look into my eyes and I'll own you / _  
_with them moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_

_You wanna know / how to make me smile / take control, own me / just for the night / _  
_and if I share my secret / you're gonna have to keep it / nobody else can see this /_  
_so watch and learn / I won't show you twice / head to toe, oooh baby / rub me right / _  
_but if I share my secret / you're gonna have to keep it / nobody else can see this / and it goes like this_

_Take me by the tongue / and I'll know you / kiss me 'til you're drunk / and I'll show you / _  
_all the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_  
_I don't need to try to control you / look into my eyes and I'll own you / _  
_with them moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger / I've got the moves like Jagger_

**Draco woke in a cold sweat,** surprised to find that it was barely past midnight.

_Merlin, I got to bed early yesterday...makes sense, though, with all the alcohol and sleeping draught I've taken in the past couple weeks._

His head ached terribly, with a sharp pain concentrated in the middle of his forehead, and he groaned as he rubbed the damp skin. He didn't have the energy to go get a potion from the cupboard, or even liquor from his father's study, or even his wand on the bedside table. He lay grimacing and rubbing his forehead for nearly two hours before he was able to fall back asleep.

_Her cold skin shocked him; if he'd had to guess he certainly would have said that her skin would be warm and his cold, but somehow the opposite was true. Her hair was cold, too. Maybe she'd been sitting outside. It __**was**__ November, after all. _

_"Still sure you can keep up, Granger?" he teased as they broke apart so that she could pull her sweater over her head. Draco would have been displeased with the slight physical separation, if he weren't so bent on watching her. For some reasons the sweaters were what did it. _

Mer - fucking - lin, Granger...and I'll bet you have no idea just how sexy that is.

_He ran his fingers along her sides, and her nearly-bare stomach shivered. Draco was almost surprised that he could see a couple of her ribs. She was a good bit skinnier than she seemed when she was dressed. He figured that was on purpose; most guys weren't really attracted to girls that seemed sickly skinny. She wasn't quite there, but Draco's problem always was that he was. It seemed to make girls self-conscious when sleeping with him, because they felt they were so much bigger than he was and there had to be something wrong with that. _

_"You should be worrying about whether you can," she replied as she brought her mouth back up to his. They were so close, her warm breath seemed to go right into his mouth, and he trembled as he gently grabbed her bottom lip with his teeth. He felt her smile against his lips, and used the last moment in which he had his wand in his hand to cast the regular birth-control spells. Something told him those would be the only ones they'd need. _

_"Is that so?" he scoffed playfully, surprised, as he had been the night before, when she peeled his shirt off with barely any reaction to his Dark Mark. He knew she'd probably mentally prepared for it, but still...Slytherin girls their age could barely look at it, girls who agreed with what the Death Eaters were doing. He realised that her indifference was just proof of the lack of fear she harboured for the Death Eaters. She may have been a primary target, but she wasn't backing down or even standing down at any cost. _

_He lifted her up onto the desk behind her, almost subtly slipping off the last vestiges of clothing on her lower body, his pants simultaneously falling to the floor beneath him. He quickly stepped out of them, shoving all the clothing aside as he started to kiss Hermione's neck and slowly but surely moving lower and lower, determined to run his lips over every inch of her. His grin widened as she moaned louder and louder, watching him intently. Every so often he would look up and meet her eyes, reveling in the sparkles he could see in them as she trembled, her soft, cold hands gripping him by the hair. _

_He almost laughed at the situation when he realised it; the irony was nearly too much to handle with a straight face. He'd been so sure that she'd have no idea what she was doing, but her gentle repositioning of his head showed exactly how well she knew - she knew what she liked, what she wanted, and how to get it. When she returned the favour ten exhilarating minutes later, he only twirled locks of her hair through his bony fingers, feeling absolutely no need to deviate from exactly what she was doing on her own. There was even a second in which he regretted stopping her, as he yanked her up from the floor by her wrists and shoved her against the wall - but only a second, which ended promptly when the taste of not only her moist lips but of himself, deep in her mouth, sent shivers and sparks up and down his spine._

**"Wait, wait, wait-** you're joking. You've got to be joking!"

"No, Harry, I'm being perfectly serious about this," Hermione groaned.

"Malfoy? I mean...I have nothing against you dating, but just...MALFOY!" Harry exclaimed, his eyebrows still scrunched up in disbelief.

"We were not dating, Harry!"

"Certainly sounds like you were," he retorted softly. Ginny gently slapped his arm.

"What? It does!"

"Just because it sounds like it doesn't mean we were, Harry," Hermione said tersely.

"Okay, okay...I heard you the first time, 'Mione."

Harry pushed himself up off the bed and pulled her into a hug. She reluctantly obliged.

"You're still my best friend, you know," Harry whispered in her ear. She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Thanks, Harry."

_**"Merlin fucking dammit, Granger!"**__ Draco griped. _

_"What did I do?" Hermione jumped. "That you don't like, I mean, because I think it's safe to assume you enjoyed that."_

_"Well, that's the thing, Granger..."_

_Hermione realised the subtext of Malfoy's statement, and a large smirk crept across her face. She leaned in closer to his face before speaking again._

_"You didn't even think I could keep up..."_

_"And then you fucking lapped me! See, this is why we're not telling anyone about this!" Draco teased._

_"Oh, that's why! I thought it had more to do with the fact that we actually sort of really hate each other," Hermione playfully sneered._

_"There's that, too. But you- you fucking proved me so incredibly wrong, and you wanna know the worst part?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_"I loved every second."_

_"Good," Hermione smiled, gently kissing him for what could have been the thousandth time as his hands continued to, almost aimlessly, explore their way across her skin._

**Ginny collapsed** onto her bed, sighing in relief.

"Oh, thank Merlin! I've missed this bed!" she exclaimed dramatically. Hermione laughed behind her, climbing gently under the covers as Ginny settled herself.

"Pity Luna lives so close, isn't it?" Ginny said sadly.

"In some ways, yes..."

"But?"

"I don't think we'd get any sleep if we tried to fit the three of us in this bed overnight. It does just fine for sitting and talking, but you and I barely manage not kicking each other off in our sleep."

"Eh, that's a good point," Ginny conceded, burrowing into her pillows.

"Excited for tomorrow, Gin?"

"Excited? I can barely wait!"

Hermione laughed.

"I can tell! I just hope Ron decides to stop being a prat, at least for the wedding."

"He will. I promise. He's not that bitter, since he likes a certain Ravenclaw now, so it's not just jealousy. I mean, it is Malfoy. You've got to give him that much."

Hermione shrugged.

"Now go to sleep," Ginny concluded authoritatively, grabbing her wand and extinguishing the lanterns in her room.

"Good night, Ginny."

"Good night, Hermione."

**Draco groaned as he waited** in the dining room with his parents. This was always the worst part of the meetings: the waiting. His aunt and uncles always kept watch for the Death Eaters who didn't live at the Manor, and once they had mostly arrived they would Summon the others who lived in various spare bedrooms of the mansion. Draco and his parents prepared the dining room, doing the menial tasks like cooking supper for everyone, tidying up, and starting the fire in the room's massive fireplace.

Draco knew that he was present mostly to act as a replacement house elf for Voldemort and his followers. His parents were the only ones who showed him any respect whatsoever, except for the few times his uncle Rodolphus decided that he needed to help Draco in order to preserve family honour. Even in those cases, Rodolphus really only stepped in because he had next to no respect for Lucius and didn't trust him.

Draco wished that Snape lived closer to Wiltshire. He trusted Snape, and Snape actually cared about him - and that was more than he could say for almost any other adult in his life. Snape didn't even react to the news about Draco and Hermione whilst in front of other Death Eaters, knowing that he really was the only one who had any legitimate perspective into their relationship and thus his testimony could make or break Draco, his family, and his future.

**Hermione stood in the bedroom** she shared with Ginny, trying to decide whether it would be worth it to take all her books or not. They wouldn't be extra weight either way, but she wanted to be able to have the information she needed close at hand, rather than superfluous descriptions of creatures they were unlikely to encounter whilst on their Horcrux Hunt.

"Should I take these, do you think?" she asked Ron as he passed by the doorway.

"Those? Why on earth would we ever need those again?" he howled, examining the titles from their second and third years with a slight smirk.

"I guess that settles that," Hermione conceded, flicking her wand and putting the books back upon the shelf against the wall. After a moment of tender silence she turned to face Ron entirely.

"Are we friends again, Ronald?"

"We never stopped being friends, Hermione. We were just..."

"In an argument?"

"Yeah. Tha's what I think at least, if you're all right with that. If you're putting the whole Malfoy thing behind you, I reckon I should, too."

Hermione smiled, catching Ron off guard by gripping him in a hug. He reciprocated, jokingly lifting her off the floor for a few seconds.

"Good to have you back," he said as he set her down.

"I never left, Ron," she said tersely.

"Good to be back, then," he amended.

"Ronald! Hermione! Ginny! Supper!" Molly's voice echoed from the first floor. Hermione stuffed her bag into a hidden pocket in her dress, she and Ron smiled at each other, and then they bolted down the staircase and into the living room. The wedding ceremony began just a bit after supper, and everyone was all jitters in what Hermione still instinctually would call their Sunday best. Her own red dress was gorgeous, but a little bittersweet, as her - muggle - mother had picked it out for her. She'd noticed that recently she stumbled over the word when she was with Molly, and had to stop herself from automatically calling Molly 'Mum.'

**"Ooh! Ooh!" Bellatrix exclaimed,** practically jumping through the door into the dining room. "Won't you look who's first in line tonight!"

Draco stifled a deep groan.

"Suppose it would be futile to ask to go get some sleep, then..."

"Draco! What did we say about this? Now that you're an adult you attend all meetings in full unless the Dark Lord requests only a select group of people," Narcissa chided.

Draco cringed as the door flew open again, this time letting in the rest of the Party, as Draco liked to call them in his head. It was from a muggle book, and Hermione's friends back home had studied that author in school; apparently he was rather famous with the muggles. Draco was a sarcastic bastard regardless and he enjoyed the reference, especially when mentioning it around Hermione. Whenever he mentioned anything slightly muggle, she got this smile on her face that she tried to suppress because it was partly a smirk - Draco Malfoy, muggle friendly! - and it was always sexy beyond reason.

Draco had to admit, additionally, most muggle literature was better than wizards' literature. In wizards' literature, people always had magic, but everything was so unlimited in the muggle books, because they could do whatever they wanted, have whatever sort of magical power they wanted or live in various worlds and time periods...

He hated Hermione for that. For her annoying muggle references. She'd be trying to teach him something, and inevitably would compare two things, one of which he wouldn't understand because it was something muggle, and he'd get so confused that she would have to explain it to him in order for him to be able to understand what she was actually supposed to teach him. As a result, he understood a lot more about the muggle world and muggle culture than he'd like. He could even go through the bloody tube station on his own, which he had needed to do earlier that summer when the muggle restaurant connected to the Leaky Cauldron was being remodeled and it was too risky to go through the alley.

Even worse, it gave him an excuse to make her smile.


	9. A Sin Worth Believing

_**[Warning: the rubbish fairly literally hits the fan; the fuck word and the Mudblood word; violence (not graphic); multiple minor characters' deaths; Draco being right; submissive!Voldemort - not really but if you read too quickly it might seem like that - so don't read too quickly]**_

_**[Update: fixed Death Eaters' names]**_

**"I Hate You" by Sick Puppies**

_Every time I end up breaking you / you change into / something worth keeping /_  
_every time I'm close to saving you / you grow into / a sin worth believing /_  
_you're everything I ever wanted but / it's never enough / you're never enough_  
_I'll take / whatever I can take / whenever I can take it / if it ever comes_

_I hate you when you're gone / I hate you turn me on / I hate the way I need you / when I don't know where you are / _  
_I love it even more / when I find you on the floor /_ _I know you think you hate me / but I will always hate you more_

_I never knew until I got a taste / what a waste / for what I had been through / _  
_'cause nothing ever really makes that change / I'm so ashamed / of what I did to you /_  
_I had to let you in to feel that rush / you were too much / way too much_  
_I'll take / whatever I can take / whenever I can take it / if it ever comes_

_I hate you when you're gone / I hate you turn me on /_ _I hate the way I need you / when I don't know where you are /_  
_I love it even more / when I find you on the floor / I know you think you hate me / but I will always hate you more_

_Round and round and... / I never knew until I got a taste / I'm so ashamed / of what I did to you_

_I hate you when you're gone / I hate you turn me on /_ _I hate the way I need you / when I don't know where you are /_  
_I love it even more / when I find you on the floor / I know you think you hate me / but I will always hate you more_  
_I hate you when you're gone / I hate you turn me on /_ _I hate the way I need you / when I don't know where you are /_  
_I love it even more / when I find you on the floor / I know you think you hate me / but I will always hate you more_

**Hermione barely kept herself** from panicking as she scanned the room for Ron and Harry. She and Ron made eye contact and rushed towards each other, tightly grasping each other's hands, and Harry collided into them when Remus shoved him their way. As soon as Harry's hand touched hers, Hermione Disapparated. They landed in the middle of a street, and nearly skidded backwards up into a fence before they managed to catch their breaths.

She felt as though she was in a trance for the following couple hours, everything went by so quickly - not just all the muggle traffic, but everything they did seemed frantic and rushed. Searching through her bag for changes of clothes, explaining where they were, ordering coffee...she only snapped back into reality when Harry screamed "DOWN!"

All three of them hit the floor right as two Death Eaters turned around and tried to hit them with curses, an effort which ultimately was unsuccessful. After both were knocked out, Ron contested that Hermione should Obliviate them, and she reluctantly altered their memories.

_We should just kill them..._she thought, although Harry had specifically vetoed that option. _They're sure to have alerted Voldemort that they found us, so the Death Eaters would already know that we're here...we might as well finish the bastards off instead of leaving them to go spell havoc somewhere else._

**"The wedding crashers are dispatched** entirely, my Lord. They have successfully conducted their invasion of the Ministry, and have progressed to the Weasleys' home," Severus said flatly, glancing at Draco out of the corner of his eye. The man was remarkably composed, considering the topic of the night, which his aunt had no doubt taunted him with. Severus was almost proud, having played a major role in Draco's boyhood, most of which related to instructing him on various subjects, including that of public indifference, which Draco had mastered.

"Good...very good..." Voldemort spoke slowly, turning away from Severus and towards Bellatrix. "You have the papers, Bella, do you not?"

"Here, my Lord!" Bellatrix enthusiastically thrust the folder to him. In a manner which Draco knew Hermione would have compared to James Bond, Voldemort laid his pale hand on top of it just as it reached him, using his long thumbnail to push the folder open.

"Granger...Hermione...Granger..." he began. Draco forced himself not to gulp as every pair of eyes in the room pressed their vehement gaze upon him. After a moment he realised the weight of the silence in the room, as Voldemort waited for him to speak.

"What **about** her?" Draco said, nonchalantly slinging his arm back and acting as though he was barely more than indifferent.

"Your little girlfriend is tonight's target," his uncle Rabastan sneered, and Draco almost bit his lip whilst trying not to react to the comment.

"Isn't she at the wedding?"

"To our knowledge, she was," Snape answered, so quickly that he almost cut off the end of Draco's question. "Apparently, the Wonder Trio was able to duck out of the party before anyone was able to catch them. We've had a couple spies in muggle London all night, and they think they caught sight of them. They followed them into a restaurant, but we haven't had word since. Chances are, of course, something went down, but that would obviously mean that we have the right people, considering they have got to be the only ones haughty enough to engage in combat in the middle of a muggle establishment."

"Granger's from muggle London, you know," Draco said with an undertone of warning. "She's at home there - well, sort of. Hasn't spent much time in the muggle world past six years."

**Hermione reached** into her back pocket as she, Ron, and Harry rounded the corner onto Grimmauld Place. She gasped, grabbing Harry by the arm and whispering frantically.

"I think my bag is still at the restaurant. I have to go back and get it!"

"Sure we shouldn't come?" Ron asked worriedly.

"They're knocked out and their memories are wiped, Ron. What exactly do you think they can do?" she griped as she retraced her steps.

**"So, what are our concerns** to be?" Rodolphus barked.

"Her," Draco replied jeeringly, but then echoed the displeased sighs of his family. "She's a better fighter than you'd think. And don't think catching her alone will do you much more good. I don't doubt that she'd use Dark magic, or even Unforgivables, if she saw both necessity and opportunity. And that's just skill-wise. She's not easy to physically overpower, either."

"You would know," Bellatrix sneered, and Draco forced a laugh.

"Well, yes, I would," he scoffed.

"Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Rabastan, Mulciber, Malfoy," Voldemort said slowly. Narcissa immediately gripped Draco at his shoulder, glaring at Voldemort.

"Oh, no, you don't," she snapped.

"Your husband," the man said condescendingly, and once his mother became less tense Draco shrugged her hand away. His father reassuringly grabbed her other hand, resting their pale, clasped fingers in between their chairs, as all three of them slowly acknowledged the statement.

_Thank Merlin...that could just be the only good thing that's happened to me recently...fuck, my life is terrible. When did this- never mind, I have cigarettes, alcohol, and sleeping draught upstairs. I'll survive the night. Maybe. This meeting better fucking be over soon._

**Hermione stepped gingerly** through the back door of the cafe, and spotted her bag under the table where she had been sitting. She sighed of relief as she picked it up, thoughtlessly keeping herself faced towards the two indisposed men, just oblivious enough not to realise that she had been joined by six more until the front door closed. She stuffed her bag into her front pocket and slowly turned around to face them, tightening her grip on her wand. She barely stopped herself from grimacing when the first physical attribute she identified was silver blond hair, but was relieved that only the elder Malfoy was present. Only a couple weeks after the grand reveal, she'd bet anything that Draco was going to be their ammunition whether he was there or not.

"Well, well, well, Granger," sniggered one of the Death Eaters, whom Hermione did not recognise. "What happened to the boys?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she jeered.

"That would be very useful information, thank you," Rabastan spat.

"All the more reason you're not getting it!"

"Think you're clever, don't you, Mudblood?"

"Oh, no, certainly not!" she exclaimed, setting all the men off guard. "I **am** clever."

"More so than you are foolhardy?"

"If you're referring to a lack of fear, then...I fear I must say no," she sneered, and Rabastan advanced towards her, becoming rather visibly irritated but making some gesture to the other men that signaled them not to react to her. He made sure to invade her personal space, but she made sure not to budge a single centimeter as he growled at her.

"Heh...guess you are prettier up close."

"Don't worry, you're not my type."

"You're pushing it, Mudblood, really pushing it-"

"Wasn't that the point? If I weren't pushing it you wouldn't be here in the first place."

Rabastan had barely begun to twirl his wand when the ground erupted behind him; everyone was shaken off their feet with the vibration. Hermione, being the only person prepared for the impact, followed up with a few lighter curses for good measure as she alone rose to her feet. There was a rustling outside the door right as a couple of the men managed to stand, and Rabastan sneered at Lucius to go patrol the sidewalks until he was called back in. Lucius scowled, but ultimately obeyed, slamming the door behind him as he begrudgingly exited. At the precise moment the door shut, Hermione blasted the counter, sending shards of metal, glass, wood, and stone onto nearly all the men still on the floor, wounding the two behind the counter most severely. The slight lifting of their chests which she had been able to observe came to an abrupt stop.

_Sorry, Harry..._she thought, with more than a hint of sarcasm as she waited to further assess her situation.

Even after a good couple minutes, only three of the four men still present had brought themselves to their feet.

"Looks like your little boyfriend was right...you're a bit of a fighter, aren't you?" Rabastan continued.

_Here we go..._ Hermione groaned internally.

"A bit?"

She looked at him with raised eyebrows, and knowing none of them were paying close enough attention to her hands to notice anything, loosened the screws of the ceiling fan. Rabastan became confused as she started to slowly back away from him, and his eyes widened when he heard screeching metal from above, mere seconds before the appliance crashed to the floor between he and Hermione. Being a muggle fan, it was connected to the electricity - which, of course, only Hermione knew - and the small spark she shot into the dangling wires prompted a shower of small flames to accompany the sharper curses she began to send. Goyle - whom she had never met, but looked just like his son, only plumper - was hit square through his chest with the Sectumsempra curse whilst still in the process of standing, and collapsed to the ground in the quickly expanding pool of blood. Hermione found herself able to detach her emotions, and used this to her distinct advantage - not as though they thought with theirs, but they still assumed that she did - and that her level of skill with Dark magic could be comparable enough to Harry's to even fret about - so even when they could hear the spells she cast, she conquered with the element of surprise.

**Bellatrix sighed.** "Well, no casualties at the wedding...that was so much less successful than it should have been..."

Half expecting her sister's response, Narcissa jumped into the conversation to follow.

"Lucius and the others should be back soon; it's been over an hour. They'll certainly have good news." Draco cringed in disagreement, but was very relieved that no one observed his reaction.

"Who knows, maybe Prince Potter and Weasel King flew in to save their perfect fucking princess," Rodolphus sneered, and Draco wasn't able to resist laughing, on multiple interpretations of his uncle's comment.

_He has a point on the fucking perfect-ly part..._

"If that was how the three of them worked together, they'd all be dead by now, you realise?"

"And why's that?"

"She's always the one saving their asses. It's almost never the other way 'round, 'cept a couple times when they got particularly tiffed with me over insultin' her."

"Is that so..." Rodolphus said in conclusion, his trailing voice clarifying that he was not making any sort of inquiry.

**Hermione startled** as the door shut again, and turned back towards it in time to watch Lucius' gasp in its entirety, not excluding his widened eyes, open jaw, and paling face. He seemed frozen in place, and she took the opportunity to finish off the last of the others, Rabastan. Lucius trembled in fear as the green light hit his brother-in-law, the sound of Hermione's voice declaring the Killing Curse more shocking than either could have imagined. Her expression was stone cold, and from her eyes as they met his a few seconds later she seemed heartless. She stood in place, her back still turned to him whilst her head spun around, and looked over at him for a moment, then let out a brief laugh which held some semblance of a cackle.

"Tell Draco I said hello," she taunted before walking to the back of the restaurant, waving what could have seemed, to an outsider, a flirtatious goodbye, and then, with one final look at the two Death Eaters behind the counter, Disapparating in a gust of white smoke.


	10. Sometimes It's a Good Hurt

**"Love Hurts" by Incubus**

_Tonight we drink to youth / and holding fast to truth / I don't want to lose / what I had as a boy /_

_my heart still has a beat / but love is now a feat / as common as / a cold day in LA. / _

_sometimes when I'm alone I wonder / is there a spell that I am under / keeping me from seeing the real thing?_

_Love hurts / but sometimes it's a good hurt / and it feels like I'm alive /_

_love sings / when it transcends the bad things / have a heart and try me / 'cause without love I won't survive_

_I'm fettered and abused / I stand naked and accused / should I surface / this one man submarine? /_  
_I only want the truth / so tonight we drink to youth / I'll never lose / what I had as a boy /_

_sometimes when I'm alone I wonder / is there a spell that I am under / keeping me from seeing the real thing?_

_Love hurts / but sometimes it's a good hurt / and it feels like I'm alive / _

_love sings / when it transcends the bad things / have a heart and try me / 'cause without love I won't survive_

**Lucius pushed open the door** to the dining room, entering the room with his head to the floor, still entranced. Narcissa practically jumped out of her seat to greet him.

"That took longer than we'd thought it would," she lamented.

"Guess the girl put up a fight," Bellatrix sneered, and Lucius only nodded, pursing his lips and unable to look her in the eye.

"What's wrong?" his wife asked anxiously as she loosened her grip on his neck, his hands still clasping her waist.

"Granger didn't put up a fight," he said, eliciting a few scrunched eyebrows. "She won the fucking battle."

"She didn't-" Rodolphus began jeeringly.

"She did. Oh, she did..."

There was a deep pause in the atmosphere, the only sound that of Draco sighing in frustration.

"I'm sorry, Draco. We should have listened. We should have been prepared," Lucius eventually continued.

"Are you saying, Lucius, that there are casualties?" Bellatrix gasped. Lucius bit his lip before responding in a gravelly, harsh tone.

"Every other man that went in that restaurant tonight in pursuit of her is laying dead on the goddam floor, Bella. That's what I'm saying. Every one of them. She more than proved Draco right tonight. She used darker curses than most of them did, including at the very least one Unforgivable. Killing Curse, nonetheless."

"Are you sure?" Rodolphus pressed.

"She murdered your brother right in front of me. Yes, I'm sure!"

Draco pushed himself up from his seat and stomped over towards the door.

"Where do you think you're going, young man?" Bellatrix shouted.

"I don't know, but anywhere's got to be better than right here! Why should I stay if no one's going to listen to a word I say unless they can use it against me? Seven men are dead because you all chose not to trust me. You responsible, skilled, experienced, adult Death Eaters. You obviously knew so much better than I did, didn't you? Oh, guess what? You fucking didn't!"

Draco began to twist the doorknob, only to jump as it slammed itself shut a second later with a twist of his aunt's wand. He gritted his teeth.

"You will stay here until you are released, Draco."

He rolled his eyes, but with the gentle touch of his mother's hand on his own he begrudgingly moved back to his seat.

**"Who- oh my gods,** we were getting so worried about you!" Ron immediately embraced Hermione after cautiously opening the door to 12 Grimmauld Place.

"Ron, Ron...Ronald! Let's at least get inside before you try to crush my ribs," she scolded lovingly, half-heartedly pushing him away. He obliged, locking the door before hugging her again.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed at the sight of her long brown hair, smiling as he walked down the staircase to discover why Ron sounded so excited. Ron let go of her as Harry raced towards them. When both of them were done hugging her and lamenting their worries for the moment, she convinced them that they all just needed to go to bed. Harry, slightly awkwardly, explained that he'd made up a room for her. She always slept in Ginny's room at the Burrow, so she wasn't alone there, but he and Ron always shared a room, if not a bed, so they, naturally, were sharing Sirius' room.

"Harry, I'll be fine. It's not like Kreacher is going to come and eat me in the middle of the night," Hermione assured him after getting him to admit his fear of leaving her in a room alone. "Besides, I can protect myself perfectly fine, Harry. Really. You've no need to worry about me."

"So then what in the blazes were you doing the past few hours?" Ron inquired heatedly.

"Protecting myself."

"You really won't tell us what happened?" Harry pressed.

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it. I'm fine."

"If you were fine, you wouldn't be so averse to talking about it," Ron added, and she glared at him. He raised his arms in retreat.

"Go to bed," she ordered, grabbing her bag out of her pocket and rummaging through it for Ron and Harry's pyjamas. After thrusting the garments towards them, she wordlessly walked upstairs, down the hall, and into the room Harry had made up for her. A few moments after she shut the door, she heard Ron and Harry going to their own room, and a tear fell down her cheek.

_I cannot believe I just did that...there are seven men dead in that restaurant right now. Because of me! I mean, they surely would have killed me and many others if I hadn't killed them first, but still! At least- no, I'm not going there. I'm not letting myself go there._

She pressed her eyelids together as she stripped down to her underwear, trying her best to shove the thought from her mind, unsuccessfully.

_At least Draco wasn't one of them._

The lone tear that had fallen a couple of minutes earlier was joined by many others as she made a poor attempt at falling asleep.

**Draco startled at the harsh knock** at his door.

_It's past one in the morning, who the fuck- _

The lock split apart and the door swung open to reveal Lucius standing behind the door, he and his cane nearly pulling off an authoritative look. Draco groaned.

"So there's this thing called sleep..."

"Granger said to tell you she says hello," his father said without emotion.

"And that couldn't wait until morning?" Draco sneered.

"It is morning, Draco," Lucius retorted, and Draco groaned again. Lucius yanked the door shut and left. Draco dragged himself out of bed to retrieve the lock from the floor and return it to its place inside the door handle.

_**"I am not doing this with you, Draco,"**__ Hermione exclaimed, heading for the door. Draco caught her by the arm as she pushed past him. She angrily hit his forearm with a lightweight cutting curse, getting him to let go, but she only yanked herself away from him rather than continuing to leave._

_"We have had this conversation before. We. Are. Not. Dating. You. Do. Not. Own. Me. Monogamy. Does. Not. Apply. Because. We. Are. Not. Dating. And. Not. Together. Not. I repeat, not together," she said jeeringly. "We should not be having this conversation again!"_

_"Well, we are!"_

_"I can see that, Draco. That's not my fault. You're the one overreacting. Just like last time."_

_"I am not overreacting!"_

_"Yes, you are!"_

_"No, I am not!"_

_"Yes, you are!"_

_"No, I am not!"_

_"Yes, you are!"_

_"No, I am not!"_

_"Dear Merlin..." Hermione groaned._

_"Listen, okay? Just listen to me," Draco begged. She refused to look at him, but didn't leave, and he continued._

_"I don't care if you have a relationship with someone. I just want to be the only one that-"_

_"The only one that I sleep with?"_

_He pursed his lips. She rolled her eyes and scoffed, a look of fear creeping into her eyes, knowing that was his way of affirming the claim. Her eyes eventually settled on his bloodied right arm. Through the white sleeves she could see clearly the cut on the top of his arm and the blood streaming down from it._

_"Sit down," she ordered begrudgingly. He raised his eyebrows in confusion, but obeyed regardless. She walked over to him and pulled his shirt off, laying it haphazardly on the table. She searched almost frantically through her bag, drawing a small phial from it a minute later. She pulled up another chair to face him and grabbed his arm. He obliged and laid it on the table as she applied a few drops of the clear liquid from the phial to the cut. She wet the other sleeve of his shirt with water from a bottle she had in her bag, and wiped the blood from his arm, setting the shirt back down onto the table when she finished. They sat in silence for a couple minutes before she began to cry. _

_"We were never supposed to care, Draco. This wasn't supposed to happen this way."_

_"I- I know. I'm sorry, Hermione, I really am, I just..."_

_"Care."_

_"Yeah."_

_After another short moment of silence, he laid his left hand on her right thigh, gently rubbing her left arm, which had started to rest on the table, with the fingertips of his right hand. _

_"We shouldn't be-" Hermione began, but he cut her off._

_"Fuck it."_

_"What?"_

_"Fuck what we should and shouldn't be doing. Where has that ever gotten us before? Nowhere we actually wanted to be. And maybe we shouldn't be doing this, maybe we shouldn't be feeling this, but at least we got here by doing what we wanted, not what we were supposed to do, what we were told to do." _

_His right shoulder in less pain than it had been a few moments earlier, he raised his hand to push aside a few strands of her hair that had fallen out of place, eliciting a momentary, fleeting smile. _

_"Please?" he asked weakly._

_"Draco..." Hermione contested, beginning to shake her head._

_"I am actually begging you for this. Please, Hermione..."_

_She sighed, threw her head back with her eyes pressed shut, then groaned. She opened her eyes and rolled her head back to its normal position. Speechlessly, she leaned forward and kissed him. He wrapped his fingers in her hair and she raised her arms to his neck, careful not to press hard on his right shoulder. Draco pulled back after about five minutes, whispering breathlessly._

_"Thank you."_

_She just smiled and pulled him tighter._


	11. A Curse Between Us

**"What Have You Done?" (feat. Keith Caputo) by Within Temptation**

_Would you mind if I hurt you / understand that I need to / wish that I had other choices / than to harm the one I love / what have you done now_

_I know I'd better stop trying / you know that there's no denying / I won't show mercy on you now /_  
_I know, should stop believing / I know, there's no retrieving / it's over now / what have you done / what have you done now_

_I, I've been waiting for someone like you / but now you are slipping away / oh, why / why does fate make us suffer /_  
_there's a curse between us / between me and you /_  
_what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done now /_  
_what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done now_

_Would you mind if I killed you / would you mind if I tried to / 'cause you have turned into my worst enemy /_  
_you carry hate that I don't feel / it's over now / what have you done / what have you done now_

_I, I've been waiting for someone like you / but now you are slipping away / oh, why / why does fate make us suffer /_  
_there's a curse between us / between me and you /_  
_what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done now /_  
_what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done / what have you done now_

_I will not fall / won't let it go / we will be free / when it ends_

_I, I've been waiting for someone like you / but now you are slipping away / oh, why / why does fate make us suffer /_  
_there's a curse between us / between me and you_

_I, I've been waiting for someone like you / but now you are slipping away / oh, why / why does fate make us suffer /_  
_there's a curse between us / between me and you_

_**For the first time ever,**__ Draco cringed as Hermione pulled her sweater off. After shoving it aside, she looked back at him, almost emotionlessly. They both knew that the day's events would wear on them. Neither was particularly willing to speak to their own experience._

_Draco ran his finger along her collarbone, trying to detach himself from the view of the scars, from the memory of their geneses. The memories of his aunt, of his uncle Rodolphus, of Dolohov, wielding their weapons, making their attempts at driving Hermione into submission._

_The memory of the exact moment that his aunt turned to him. _You know this girl, this filthy mudblood, don't you, Draco? Why don't you and Greyback deal with this one? We'll come get you in a few hours, darling...

_The memory of the exact moment he stepped forward. Hermione would have ordered nothing less; that's what they meant by no-strings-attached. Outside of their sleeping together, there was nothing to suggest they would be anything but enemies, save for their tutor-student interactions, most of which coincided with their sleeping together and thus barely counted as separate. They'd both hurt each other - in fights, battles, and other events - but something told him this time was different. Something in his gut._

_The compulsion to kiss her as usual, knowing that to kiss even one of her new scars would be to ask for some level of forgiveness. The desperate desire for the forgiveness which he knew better than to expect her to give him._

_As right as it had always felt to sleep with her, it felt wrong to do so after going so far. Granted, he'd given her other scars; granted, a couple of them were from knives; but all of them had been during sex - and naturally there was nothing of the sort involved whilst surrounded by other Death Eaters._

_"Are you okay?" she sighed angrily, crossing her arms over her bare chest._

_"Yeah, yeah," he responded, snapping back into the moment and becoming completely aware of his own hands roughly jerking at his pants._

_"Draco Lucius Malfoy, you are a terrible liar," Hermione reprimanded._

_"And you're perfectly all right?" he barked._

_"I never said that I was," she sneered, sharply pulling him into a kiss._

_"Hermione-"_

_"We're not talking about this, Draco," she commanded pleadingly. Draco could tell from her shaky voice that he wasn't going to get anywhere by trying to get her to be honest with him. She was, literally, sleeping with the enemy, especially now that he had acted as her enemy. Not just Potter's enemy, or the Weasleys'... he'd hurt her directly. She needed to act like it never happened. She, who was the one doing the right-_

How can she still be so beautiful? No- sexy. Remember, you're using words related to sex- not romance. Definitely not romance. You don't like her. Don't let yourself think you like her, because you don't. You definitely don't. She's gorgeous, she's a good chase and a great fuck. You don't like her. You definitely don't like her, and you're definitely okay with torturing her. She's a worthless mudblood, why wouldn't you be, Draco?

_Draco made sure to Disapparate out of the muggle hotel as soon as they both finished, careful to remind himself not to take to heart the crying he could hear below the sound of the bath Hermione immediately had started._

**Hermione nervously glanced** at the clock in the kitchen, worried to find that without being woken up, Ron and Harry managed to sleep until noon.

"So - sleeping with Harry - bad idea - his stupid bloody nightmares-" Ron groaned as he wrapped his hand around the cup of tea Hermione handed him.

"I can't control them, you know that!" Harry cried apologetically.

"That's the worst part!"

"Okay, okay, calm down, both of you! Just sit down and have some tea and some food and maybe you'll sleep separately tonight. Ron, maybe you can just move into my room, so we all stay together, and that way you two won't worry about me so much."

"Why is Ron the one to move into your room?"

"I- I figured you'd want to be in Sirius' room, Harry...I thought that's why you chose it to begin with," Hermione stammered.

"Oh, okay. I thought maybe you just-"

"You two need to get over this whole 'who-Hermione-likes-better' foolishness. You've got your own girls - granted, neither of them are here, but nonetheless - we're all best friends, all three of us. And for the record, you're both complete arses!"

Ron and Harry looked at each other and sighed playfully.

"But...no Quidditch, no Hermione, what ever will we compete over?" Ron feigned lament. Hermione reached to the pile of encyclopedias she had brought with them, and shoved a couple of them towards the pair of hastily-dressed young men.

"How about...who can find information that we need? That sounds spectacular to me!"

They looked at each other and sighed again, sitting down to the table and beginning to simultaneously eat and page through the massive books. Hermione grinned smugly as she bit off the edge of a piece of toast.

**"Draco! Draco, come downstairs, please!"** Bellatrix' shrill voice penetrated the walls of Draco's bedroom. He groaned, frustratedly shoving a bookmark into his novel and pushing himself off his bed. He stumbled over to his mirror, straightened his hair and his tie, and extinguished the lantern by his bed. As Draco jerked his door open he was greeted with a chorus of screams, shrieks, and cackles, seemingly not all his aunt's, which confused him.

_I could have sworn Aunt Bella was the only crazy woman we had around here..._

"Yes?" he asked brusquely as he catapulted himself off the bottom step of the staircase, silver eyes pointed towards his parents and uncle. His mother caught him by the arm, looking at him just as gently.

"We caught one of Potter's friends on her way home from school. She won't say anything, though. We're not sure if she knows anything important. Do you know her?" Narcissa explained quietly, pointing to the girl being violently shoved to the floor. Draco looked over to see a flash of long hair as blonde as his cascade onto the brown wood.

"Lovegood?" he asked, though he knew there was no other contender. His mother nodded.

"I mean, I know her...don't know if she'd know much of anything, though...always was closer to Granger and the Weaslette than to Potter himself," Draco said.

"Have you taken anything of mine?" Bellatrix screamed for the third time.

"I told you, I don't know anything! The nargles probably took whatever's missing!" Luna exclaimed. "They do that a lot. They take my things all the time."

Draco registered that Luna's voice seemed even dreamier than usual.

"You have a very pretty ceiling, by the way, Bella," Luna murmured.

"What did you call me?" Bellatrix snapped.

"Isn't that your name? Bella? Pardon me - I thought that was your name," Luna said. Bellatrix, with a frightened look on her face, moved away from the girl, and Luna sat up. Her movements resembled those of a doll, Draco observed. Bellatrix rushed over to her sister.

"Severus said that the girl was crazy, Draco," she began. "We thought-"

"He was kidding?" Draco interrupted jeeringly, earning himself a few scowls. "Her classmates don't call her 'Loony Lovegood' for nothing."

Draco restrained himself from grimacing as his uncle stormed over to the blonde girl and began torturing her himself. Her screams were piercing, but all of her answers to their questions continued to be vague, irrelevant, and unsatisfactory. After a little over an hour, Rodolphus decided to give up.

"Draco," he sighed angrily, shoving Luna back down to the floor as he stood up as regally as he was able. "Take the girl to the cellar."

"Yes, Uncle."

Draco slid away from his parents and aunt, trading places with his uncle so that he stood over Luna. He reached his hand down, grabbing her harshly by the arm and pulling her up from the floor, then heading towards the cellar. She followed willingly, looking at him confusedly when he closed the entrance after himself.

"Blame the nargles, why don't you?" he sneered, and she giggled.

"It's always the nargles' fault, didn't you know?" she retorted, looking him briefly in the eyes with an expression that answered his question precisely before turning away and calling out for Griphook and Ollivander. Draco laughed.

"I'll make sure they remember to feed you, too," he said, and wheeled himself out of the cellar and back up the stairs.


	12. Wounds Are Ways to Reveal Us

**"Breakdown" by Seether**

_The sun is gone and the flowers rot / words are spaces between us / _  
_and I should've been drowned / in the rivers I've found / of token lost /_  
_and I should've been down / when you made me insecure_

_So break me down / if it makes you feel right / and hate me now / if it keeps you all right / _  
_you can't break me down / if it takes all your might / 'cause I'm so much more / than meets the eye_

_And I'm the one you can never trust / 'cause wounds are ways to reveal us / _  
_and yeah I could have tried / and devoted my life / to both of us / _  
_but what a waste of my time / when the world we had was yours_

_So break me down / if it makes you feel right / and hate me now / if it keeps you all right / _  
_you can't break me down / if it takes all your might / 'cause I'm so much more / than all your lies_

_Hate me / break me down / so break me down / so break me down / _  
_so break me down / if it makes you feel right / and hate me now / if it keeps you all right / _  
_you can't break me down / if it takes all your might / 'cause I'm so much more / than meets the eye_

_**Hermione took a deep sigh,**__ gulped, and then raised her fist to rap on the door._

_"Come in," McGonagall's voice said. Hermione dropped her hand to the doorknob and pushed the door open, sliding into the classroom and tenderly shutting the door behind her._

_"Come here, come here," McGonagall beckoned, and Hermione quickly obeyed, marching through the rows of desks and up to the front of McGonagall's room. _

_"You called for me, Professor?" _

_"Yes...I suppose I'd better just ask; you have been tutoring Master Malfoy, have you not?"_

_"Y-yes, Professor. I have," Hermione said nervously. "Why?"_

_"Earlier today he got himself into a good bit of trouble...currently he is in the hospital wing. I'll spare you the details for now. Stubborn as he is, he refuses to consume the potions given to him, says he does not trust their makers. A slap in the face to the school, of course, but nonetheless...eventually Professor Dumbledore got him to name those he would trust with preparing his potions. He named Professor Snape, but Professor Snape refuses to humour him. The only person he would name was you, and thus, I have a great favour to ask of you."_

_"You are asking me to prepare his potions, if I understand correctly?"_

_"You understand correctly," McGonagall nodded._

_"But- wouldn't he need them at night and-"_

_"You would have complete permission to go to the hospital wing whenever you feel necessary."_

_"Oh..." Hermione did her best to conceal her flash of excitement._

_"Am I to believe you have accepted?"_

_"Y- yes, Professor. I would be...happy to do that."_

_"Lovely," McGonagall sighed in relief. She reached to her desk and grabbed a piece of parchment. Hermione stretched out her hand to receive it._

_"This is the potion you will need to make," said McGonagall. "If there are any ingredients you do not have, feel free to come to any of your professors."_

_"And Professor Snape?"_

_"Come to me first if you need to see Professor Snape..." McGonagall winked._

_"Yes, Professor," Hermione nodded with a soft laugh._

_"Very well," McGonagall said, gesturing towards the door. "Thank you."_

_"Yes, Professor," Hermione replied, then turned and left the room. As she shut the door, she leaned back onto it, biting her lower lip. A grin spread across her face and she chuckled. She pushed herself off of the door and strode back to the Gryffindor common room with a gleam still in her eyes._

**Draco startled as he heard **his door open, nearly dropping his drink as he whipped around in his seat only to be greeted by a figure whose skin blended in with the darkness of his room.

"Oh, it's only you," he sighed.

"Who were you expecting?" Blaise sneered. "Granger?"

Draco groaned.

"Barely been seven months, mate. Nobody's forgotten," said Blaise as he sat himself down on Draco's bed. "You seem to be trying, though. Thing is, you don't want to."

Draco threw back his head and downed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp. Blaise laughed and shook his head, grabbing the empty glass from Draco's hand.

"It'll never be enough and you know that, and I won't help you with it. Now, if you want to stop self-destructing- I'm here to help."

"What? You don't think it'd be better for me to be absolutely over her?"

"Firstly, I will point out that you have just admitted that you have feelings for her. Secondly, I do agree that it would be better, but I know that in doing so you may just lose your last chance at trying to be happy."

"When did being happy become a part of this, Blaise?"

"It always was, Draco. That's why you like her so much."

"Oh, is it?"

"Part of it, at least. Of course the other part is how entirely insane you drive each other, but nothing's perfect."

"Ha! Wouldn't that be something?"

"Wouldn't it?"

Blaise's voice was gentle yet piercing, and Draco did not respond but to sigh.

"How's Lovegood? Still alive, still crazy?"

"Crazy as ever."

"Figured as much."

"Then why'd you ask?"

"Eh, thought it might be good to check. If your aunt can drive sane people crazy, there could have been a chance she could drive crazy people sane, don't you think?"

"No, no I don't."

"Well then!" Blaise feigned a high-pitched scoff.

"How's Hogwarts?"

"Crazy as ever. Little crazier, actually, not that we expected any less. Carrows are leanin' on me, seeing as they don't have you, you know. Hard to give them what they want, though, seeing as I'm not you."

Draco chuckled weakly. "You're as close as most people are ever going to get, though."

They spent another moment in silence. After multiple sighs, Draco fell back and laid down.

"Worried for her?" Blaise asked gently.

"Hmm?"

"Are you worried for her?"

"Who? Lovegood?"

Blaise slapped Draco gently upside his head.

"Oh, you're talking about Granger," Draco said sarcastically.

"Yes, smartass, I'm talking about Granger."

"I mean-" Draco began, but instinctually stopped himself.

"So yes."

"I barely even said anything!"

"Sometimes, not saying anything can mean more than what you would have said."

**"Who would've thought Lovegood** would rat us out?!" Ron exclaimed.

"They have Luna, Ronald," Hermione said to him, reluctantly letting go of Ron and Harry's hands after their rough landing.

"How do you know?" Harry inquired, his facial expression conveying his confusion.

"She certainly wasn't home. He would've let us see her, he wouldn't have seemed so anxious. She's his world, you see. She's explained that to me. Save for Luna's friends and his Quibbler, they're all each other has. And they support you, they support us, which means Vol- You-Know-Who doesn't want them talking. If her father's continued printing articles like he did before, the Death Eaters will want to keep him quiet. And how better to do that than to take the person who means everything to him?"

"The bastards!" Ron said so loudly and angrily that he practically screamed.

"They're Death Eaters! It's rather rare that they're nice."

"Thinking of any in particular, sweetheart?" came a voice from behind them. Hermione immediately turned to groan at Ron, but quickly realised that the voice was deeper and more gravelly than either Ron's or Harry's. The three whirled around in unison to see a man they only vaguely recognised. They began to back up, but while Ron and Harry sprinted forward, a Snatcher whom Hermione did recognise stopped her, standing directly in front of her as she looked to the top of the hill on which they were standing. She had seen him one night, dragging another man away. He'd stopped because he smelt her perfume.

"Hello, beautiful," he sneered, walking slowly towards her. She backed away, then seeing the smirk on his face, dashed past him. She could tell the team of Snatchers was primarily after her, as only three of them had run off after her companions, yet at least five more remained. They followed soon after her, but she mostly managed to evade them, blowing trees and shrubs to smithereens behind her.

A single glance at her watch told her that they had been in pursuit for over an hour. Her lungs felt as though they were burning, but she knew better than to stop- that is, until she caught up to Harry and Ron, who were struggling in the grips of two of the Snatchers who had been sent after them. Moments later, all twelve people were standing in front of the gate at Malfoy Manor.

They stood in suspense whilst Bellatrix Lestrange greeted them on the other side of the gate to inquire. The Snatcher who held Harry simply brushed his dark, dirty hair off of his forehead, revealing what looked not like a lightning bolt but a scar nonetheless, which was cause enough for suspicion.

"Get...Draco..." Bellatrix ordered before letting them through the gate. Hermione shivered.


	13. Get On Your Knees

_**"King Of The World" by Porcelain Black (Porcelain and the Tramps)**_

_My pain-filled drama queen / is always creeping at your bed / getting ready to buy you out / _  
_'cause we all know / what goes around comes around / you should've known what I was all about / do not test me_

_'Cause I'm the fucking king of the world / get on your knees / _  
_I'm the fucking king of the world / do as I please / _  
_so get up and get out and I'll show you / what it takes for me to control you / 'cause I'm the fucking king of the world_

_Keep your head down / until I tell you to speak / and not giving me the run around / _  
_when you fall back onto my coffin / no, you should've stayed outta my way / dare you test me_

_'Cause I'm the fucking king of the world / get on your knees / _  
_I'm the fucking king of the world / do as I please / _  
_so get up and get out and I'll show you / what it takes for me to control you / 'cause I'm the fucking king of the world_

_Bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / bow to me, bow_

_Get on your knees / 'cause I'm the fucking king of the world / do as I please / _  
_so get up and get out and I'll show you / what it takes for me to control you / _  
_'cause I'm the fucking king / the fucking king of the world / do as I please / _  
_I'm the fucking king / the fucking king of the world / of the world / get on your knees / _  
_I'm the fucking king / the fucking king of the world, yeah / I'm the fucking king of the world_

_Bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / _  
_bow to me / bow to me / at my feet / you'll bow to me / bow to me_

**Draco groaned as he shoved his book aside** and pushed himself off his bed, grumpily answering the door.

"Yes, Mother?"

"You'll never guess who just got captured," she cooed.

"Granger," he said flatly, and she furrowed her eyebrows at him.

"Apparently my sex life is everyone's business, so who else would anyone imply?" he said scathingly. Narcissa seemingly ignored his harshness.

"Come downstairs, darling," she said, and turned and walked back down the stairs. Draco sighed, then followed after her. He didn't notice that he was holding his breath until he heard his uncle laughing and resisted the urge to respond.

"Oh, Draco, darling," he heard his aunt say almost whimsically, and turned away from the sight of Greyback clenching the jackets of Potter's best friends to observe Bellatrix as she yanked Potter to the floor and beckoned for Draco to join her. He felt his father's frigid hand grasp his neck tightly from behind as the man whispered nervously into his ear, stressing the importance of Draco's testimony.

"We might be forgiven..."

**Hermione gritted her teeth **as she struggled to free herself from the werewolf's clutches, to no avail. Draco's mother had run upstairs; this was her final moment before- She tried desperately not to watch Draco descend the stairs, but something like curiosity got the better of her and she peered out of the corner of her eye as he marched down the marble staircase and was summoned over to where Bellatrix stood with Harry.

She realised that they were relying on Draco's word as their identification. None of the adults really knew what she, Harry, or Ron looked like, or any of their other friends for that matter, but Draco - Draco knew. Especially her. She was practically a dead woman walking if he was really working for them, which she expected him to be.

"I- I can't be sure," he grimaced, evading his aunt's angry eyes. He shakily pushed himself up from his kneeling position on the floor, and her heartbeat increased accordingly.

"I- it's not him."

For a moment, she could barely breathe. He knew it was Harry; she knew he knew. Why wouldn't he say so?

"If it's not him, then..." his mother began.

"Could be anyone. Potter and his friends have used Polyjuice before - not to mention spells to change appearance. I wouldn't put it past anyone in that group of theirs to disguise themselves as Potter. Obviously not Lovegood, seeing as we've got her already, but with the following Scarhead's got- who knows..."

"But the girl?" Bellatrix asked sharply, and his head snapped around.

"I couldn't say upfront, but more likely to be herself than either of the boys are."

_So much for Draco helping us._

"And why's that?" Rodolphus sneered.

"Ask my father about the night of the wedding. That's reason enough."

"What, because she killed?"

"Because she's prepared to and able to, even when confronted by multiple opponents. That can't be said for most other people. She's the safest to be on her own. As I've said before, Potter most likely isn't even in the United Kingdom anymore. Too risky otherwise, wouldn't you say, with all the Snatchers around?"

She cringed as Greyback stood taller, pushing his pelvis against her as he looked with the other Death Eaters at the young man, who had migrated away from his aunt and closer to the edge of the room. They all seemed very sceptical, but he radiated confidence.

_No, arrogance - it's arrogance rather than confidence._

"I've known these people for seven years, and I haven't been wrong about them yet, even when none of you believed me. May I remind you that the last time you mistrusted my judgement about Granger, seven men ended up dead. It's in everyone's best interest for you all to trust me on this," Draco announced admonishingly.

"Where did you find them?" Bellatrix demanded of Greyback.

"Forest of Dean, Ma'ame Lestrange," Scabior replied instantly.

"Get rid of the boys," she commanded, clasping the neck of Harry's jacket and shoving him towards Wormtail. Wormtail scurried over to grab Ron from Greyback, and continued heading for the stairs. Ron protested, shouting as Bellatrix approached Greyback, as Hermione struggled to entertain the possibility of freeing herself.

"Drop them where you found them," Bellatrix clarified.

"I'm going to have a little talk with this one - girl to girl," she cackled, her faces within inches of Hermione's. Hermione sneered at her.

_**Draco twiddled his thumbs,** trying to entertain himself while he lay useless in the hospital bed._

Fucking Potter, always has to prove himself! He didn't need a high-class cutting curse against someone like me. I'm no Dark Lord, for Merlin's sake! Not like I was trying to kill him or anything. Just minding my own fucking business, unlike Saint Potter. Just having a mental breakdown. Nothing he should have been worried about. Fuck, my chest hurts. I hope they asked Her-

_The door to the infirmary creaked open, and Draco's eyes sped to the door. A smirk grew on his lips as he observed Madam Pomfrey whispering to someone whose back was turned to him - a back with long brown hair cascading over it._

_"Feel free to contact me if you need anything, Hermione, dear. I'm only a few rooms away," the older woman said at normal volume._

_"Thank you dearly, Madam Pomfrey. I'm sure I'll be all right," Hermione cooed in reply. Her back remained turned to Draco as she watched the nurse exit the room. She lay her hand against the exterior of the right front pocket of her jeans, and Draco presumed - and hoped - she was casting a spell. A few more seconds, and she spun around to find Draco's eyes trained to her._

_"What the bloody hell did you do this time?" she reprimanded without hesitation, crossing her arms over her chest. Draco resisted his urge to react to the resulting obstruction of his view._

_"You should be asking Prince Potter, not me. He cast the fucking curse," Draco griped. Hermione sighed, looking at him sceptically._

_"Not kidding," he added._

_"What curse?" she sighed._

_"I don't know the name. I just know that it hurt like fucking **hell**."_

_"If it hurt so badly, why did you refuse your potions?"_

_"Why do you think?"_

_"I'm not sure. I'm torn between your being a raging lunatic or your trying to outsmart the system."_

_"Maybe I just wanted to see you."_

_"You could have just asked."_

_"Because that wouldn't be suspicious at all, now would it?"_

_"And you think this isn't?"_

_"You've been tutoring me in the very subject. I think it would seem logical that I would trust you to make them."_  
_Hermione sighed again, even more heavily._

_"What **am** I going to do with you, Draco?" she accosted him._

_"I think that's a rhetorical question, babe."_

_"Would I be here if it wasn't?"_

_He waited impatiently as her eyes slowly came to meet his. She laughed, averting hers again, then briskly walked to the edge of the hospital bed. He grasped her long hair at the nape of her neck, caressing her neck as she leaned over him and her hair fell from behind her onto the top of his chest. Her fingers pressed down on his shoulders as her lips grazed his._

_With his injury, Draco was not able to fully sit up on his own, so he was restrained in the worst of positions, close enough to her to feel the hot air she exhaled, but not close enough to close the slight gap between them. He had learned to abandon some of his pride when alone with her, and did not try to prevent her from becoming aware of his displeasure. She used the distance to tease him for another moment before locking her lips with his and moving to stand just a little bit closer. _

_His hands travelled to the small of her back as he ran his tongue along the backs of her teeth, and he pulled her downwards. He was not actually strong enough to exert the pressure necessary to displace her body, but she responded with great alacrity, obliging herself not only to diminish the gap between their chests but to wordlessly climb up onto the bed, straddling him and beginning to moan as Draco's rough hands flung her sweater to the floor next to them._

**In the absence of Harry and Ron,** Hermione felt far less need to maintain appearances. She'd refused to tell them almost all the details of her rendez-vous with the Death Eaters in the restaurant, hoping to spare them another phase of denial. They, despite being her best friends, still would not be ones to believe that she was capable of any heinous crime, and premeditated killing, commonly known as murder, was most definitely a heinous crime. There was a very good reason the Killing Curse was one of the Unforgivables, and an even better reason that the Death Eaters preferred to utilise the Unforgivables as opposed to simpler spells.

Greyback's hand quickly drifted, toying with the buttons on her jacket. She jabbed him in the gut with her elbow and he stumbled away from her. Greyback was one of those desperate wizards who seemed almost never to take their hand off their wand, and Hermione used this to her benefit immediately, yanking it from his palm as he wobbled backwards. She hastily Stunned him and he crashed onto the floor.

A plethora of spells were sent from all corners of the room, various Death Eaters reacting within seconds. Rodolphus rushed forward to grab her, and she managed a Cruciatus Curse, sending him to the floor next to the unconscious werewolf writhing in pain. Screams were elicited a moment later, further infuriating his wife. Unlike the other Death Eaters, when Bellatrix clasped her hands onto the girl, she was capable of maintaining her grip and pulling her husband's wand from Hermione's fingers. Bellatrix growled at the younger woman.

"Be happy he's alive, bitch," Hermione roared, drawing a few gasps. Not to her surprise, Draco could be seen standing nonchalantly beside his mother, chuckling.

Bellatrix turned her own wand onto Hermione, and after a moment Hermione collapsed under the force of Bellatrix' Cruciatus, careful not to scream audibly for over twenty minutes, at which point she began to ignore the dark-haired woman's inquiries and shrieks and concentrate her attention instead on freeing Moody's knife from the contents of her bag, which had been strewn about upon the wooden floor promptly after their arrival.

Moments later, Bellatrix seemed to notice that Hermione's attention was entirely elsewhere, and started to demand that the younger woman return her mind to the torturous process in which they were engaged. As if on cue, the handle of Mad-Eye's weapon landed itself in Hermione's palm. Immediately Hermione thrust the blade upwards towards the woman laying on top of her, and Bellatrix quickly pushed herself away. This time it was Lucius whose hands clamped onto Hermione's forearms, spinning her around so that her back faced him.

"Stupid whore," he snarled. She forced a laugh.

"You should hope not," she sneered in the midst of an attempt to wriggle free.

"Excuse me?"

"You should hope I'm not a whore," Hermione stated flatly, raising her voice only momentarily when her struggles were successful and she pulled free from his grasp.

"And why is that?"

Hermione shoved a more animated laugh from her throat, sniggering in reply, and Draco pacified his expression.

"There would be no Malfoy fortune left if I were," she asserted smugly.


	14. How I Feel When I'm Around You

**"Roulette" by System of a Down**

_I have a problem that I cannot explain / I have no reason why it should have been so plain / _  
_have no questions but I sure have excuse / I lack the reason why I should be so confused /_  
_I know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / don't know / how I feel when I'm around you / _  
_around you_

_Left a message but it ain't a bit of use / I have some pictures, the wild might be the deuce / _  
_today you saw, you saw me, you explained / playing the show and running down the plane /_  
_I know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / don't know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / _  
_I know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / don't know / how I feel when I'm around you / _  
_around you /_

_I / I know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / don't know / how I feel when i'm around you, I /_  
_I know / how I feel when I'm around you, I / don't know / how I feel when I'm around you / _  
_around you / around you / around you / around you /_

**Dolohov thrust his arm** around Hermione's waist, gripping her fiercely. Draco grimaced as the man pushed his face towards hers, grateful for the current lack of spectators, the others having trickled out in boredom or frustration. The pangs of jealousy, of possessiveness, of lust, were best kept hidden behind his shadowy facade, and with only Dolohov, Hermione, Wormtail, and Draco's parents, he was not as closely watched.

"My earlier offer stands, Mudblood, if you'd like to take me up on that."

"Ha! You're more likely to get information out of me than to convince me to sleep with you! I guarantee you won't be accomplishing either, so your pretentious attempts are futile."

"What," he jeered, "you wouldn't rather get fucked than give up your hero?"

"As I said, I'll be doing neither. I'm not privy to the concept of surrender and, you see, I have these things called standards-"

Draco chortled, taking another drag of his fag and leaning back against the wall wearing a smug grin. Dolohov glared back at him.

"Bit cocky there, aren't you, boy?"

Draco furrowed his eyebrows into a more distinct smirk.

"Superb use of language," he said, raising his left hand and gently slapping it a few times with his right. "I commend you."

He furtively met Hermione's eyes, grinding his teeth in resistance. If only he were the only Death Eater in the room- maybe he would be doing something - some**one** - more worth his while. Maybe, though, he'd just carp about how terrible it was that sex was no longer satisfactory whatsoever, no matter who he slept with. Even the highest-class escorts had proven to be no competition for Hermione. Pity they were over. Unfortunately, neither of them had considered, while making that decision, that they would be seeing each other anytime soon. Draco had known he wasn't to be returning to Hogwarts for what should have been their seventh term, and Hermione, to his knowledge, had been expected to, until she fled the scene of the wedding with Potter and Weaselby.

Draco momentarily wondered what state the two were in, off in the woods by themselves without their resources and their precious companion. The Order had safehouses, though. Surely there was some plan. If not, they seemed to be reckless enough to whip up plans of action fairly quickly. Draco hoped that helping them escape would prove not to be in vain. Luna swore that his allegiance was invaluable to either side, but Draco remained unconvinced. She was turning out to be a rather good friend, and he knew she was not as crazy as she put off to the other Death Eaters, but he still questioned the extent to which she was sane.

**Hermione withheld from laughing** as Draco sarcastically addressed the man holding her. As Dolohov was sneering back at him, she twisted his arms so that they were crossed painfully over each other, causing him to loosen his grip on her. He spun back around and slapped her but slid to the wood floor with the impact of a bony knee to his groin. Even as other Death Eaters flung themselves towards her, Hermione jeered at Dolohov.

"Bet you thought you'd get somewhere by making sure I was without a wand, didn't you?" she cackled. "In case you've forgotten, I was raised as a Muggle. I know how to fight just as well as a Muggle woman as I do a witch. I am the one with the advantage."

If she could only get far enough away from them, she really would have an advantage. As she doubted Draco had informed them, she knew her way around a majority of the Manor - which, considering the magnitude of the home, was saying a lot.

Narcissa ultimately was the person to get the tightest grip on Hermione, mostly because Hermione was surprised at the amount of force the woman was able to use. Not being a Death Eater herself, Draco's mother wasn't really supposed to do anything but cook and kiss her husband, but Hermione could see that frustration had begun to get the better of her. It **had** been almost a month already. Almost Hermione's entire body was practically covered in scars, and still she stood her ground. At first, Bellatrix and the others had seemed excited for a challenge, but they were not prepared to face an opponent as challenging as she. No one had lasted this long in the hands of the Death Eaters without dying or going crazy, and she didn't even give them the satisfaction of being out of fighting shape. Hermione knew that, for the Malfoys, she was a double-edged sword all her own. They more than anyone had every reason to want her dead, to want her far away from their home, from their son. If she was there much longer, they'd be seeing bedroom eyes from across the room, she could guarantee it.

_**Draco resisted the urge to groan**__ as he awoke, blinking rapidly to adjust to the sunlight streaming through the infirmary windows. The first thing he noticed aside from the painful light was the arm draped gently over his chest. He broke out beaming before realising he had done so. They'd never actually slept together before, never fallen asleep together. Immediately he jumped to fearing that they were blurring the lines, but one look at her peaceful expression and he was biting his lip so forcefully that it bled. With the light cascading over her, she looked angelic. _

_He smirked as the previous night flashed through his mind. He hoped she'd brought more than just the potion she gave him before they fell asleep. His chest was hurting again. It felt like it was coming from the inside rather than from his cut, but he decided to believe they were related, because the other option was that he was having feelings for her - and he wasn't having feelings for her. He definitely was not. He wanted her to be the one making his potions as an easy excuse to have more sex with her. It wasn't like he actually trusted her with his life or anything like that._


	15. Helpless and Left for Dead

_**[Warning: Discussion of death, killing, and morality/immorality involved. I am NOT saying that I support killing people, that Hermione, Luna, JK Rowling, etc. supports killing people. Hermione is struggling to come to terms with her recent past. Luna is loving, thoughtful, and open-minded; she is not judgemental.]**_

**"Dance With The Devil" by Breaking Benjamin**

_Here I stand / helpless and left for dead / _  
_close your eyes / so many days go by /_  
_easy to find what's wrong / harder to find what's right_

_I believe in you / I can show you / _  
_that I can see right through / all your empty lies /_  
_I won't stay long / in this world so wrong_

_Say goodbye / as we dance with the devil tonight /_  
_don't you dare look at him in the eye / as we dance with the devil tonight_

_Trembling / crawling across my skin / _  
_feeling your cold dead eyes / stealing the life of mine_

_I believe in you / I can show you / _  
_that I can see right through / all your empty lies /_  
_I won't last long / in this world so wrong_

_Say goodbye / as we dance with the devil tonight /_  
_don't you dare look at him in the eye / as we dance with the devil tonight / hold on / hold on_

_Say goodbye / as we dance with the devil tonight /_  
_don't you dare look at him in the eye / as we dance with the devil tonight / hold on / hold on_

_Goodbye_

_**Hermione woke with a start,**__ momentarily forgetting where she was. Once she remembered, her heartbeat slowed, and she returned to reality at the feel of Draco's hand gently stroking her hair. _

Did it count as more than sex if they slept in the same bed, regardless of context? If so, they were in trouble.

_She just hadn't wanted to make the effort to migrate all the way back to the Gryffindor dormitories, and sleeping entwined in Draco was more desirable than simply sliding into another of the beds. They both were early risers, so there wasn't much chance of being walked in on by Madam Pomfrey, or anybody else for that matter. _

Wait, how did I know that he'd wake up early?

_"Good morning," Draco whispered. She smiled. _

_"Likewise," she said, moving her hand from the middle of his chest to the other side of his body, gripping the hand that wasn't yet wrapped in her excuse for hair. She had to admit it was far less bushy than when she was younger, but it still was rubbish compared to Ginny's or Luna's beautiful, silky tresses. She remembered that she needed to ask Harry later about the previous evening. She desperately wanted to know what excuse he had for nearly killing Draco. Curses that could do enough damage for a person to be barely able to sit up weren't meant for use against other students, Death Eater or not. On the other hand, she now had a wonderful advantage, seeing as Draco physically was unable to be on top. She pretended not to notice that he winced as he repositioned their hands. _

Draco Malfoy and his goddam pride...

_"Should I get another dose of your potion, babe?" she asked, trying to seem less concerned than she was beginning to feel. He nodded, and she carefully slipped out of bed and retrieved a phial from her bag, which rested against the wall near the double doors out to the corridor. She grabbed her Potions textbook as well. She returned to the hospital bed, lifting the covers and sliding back under them after handing Draco the potion. He begrudgingly downed the liquid and set the phial on the bedside table next to him, watching as she opened the textbook on her lap. _

_"Ready for what we were supposed to go over last night?" _

_Draco groaned, but didn't openly object. _

_"Best to get it over with, I suppose," he sighed. _

_Hermione rolled her eyes, and Draco postponed their studying by proceeding to kiss her again._

_"Now, is that really what you would call 'getting it over with'?" she half-heartedly reprimanded._

_"Did you really just ask me that?" he replied playfully, planting a gentle kiss on her skull as she laughed. As he pulled back they both knew, especially with her bright smile and her red-tinged cheeks, that they were pushing their boundary._

**Draco lay in his bed,** trying to take in the smell of rose-scented hair, knowing that the woman next to him was more than happy. She'd been ecstatic when he replied to her letter in the first place, and even then he'd thought he might just cut it at making her feel important and leave it there. Then he got drunk, and hell if he cared any more about the fact that he didn't care.

_"Better to sleep with Daphne than to pay for another escort,"_ he thought as there was a knock on his door. He felt a jolt in his mattress and resisted groaning as he pushed himself out of bed and slid on a pair of boxer shorts. The door began to open.

_Women... _he grimaced.

"Yes, Mother?" he said frustratedly.

"Oh, Draco, dear, I didn't realise someone else was here," Narcissa sputtered, the door now entirely open, allowing her to momentarily distract herself from her own dismay, with the sight of the younger woman's completely bare shoulders. She almost smiled when she realised it was Daphne. The girl was dim, petty, shallow, and weak, but she had at least one thing going for her: she **wasn't** Hermione Granger.

"He would like to see us now, in the dining hall," she whispered worriedly.

"About what?" Draco griped.

"You know about what," she barked, and turned away from him. "You'd better be downstairs within the next five minutes, Draco," she added, and with that, she slammed the door and stormed off.

**Hermione maneouvred the shard of glass** so that she had it in the position in which she could best view the back of her head. It was still early morning, and much too dark to see well, but she spent a moment admiring the intricate braid that Luna had managed. The proud smile on Luna's face made it all even better.

_Only Luna could learn to enjoy being imprisoned without someone else's urging..._

"Do you like it? I hoped you would. My mum used to do my hair like this, when she was alive."

Hermione nodded, setting the glass on the stone floor and going to sit with Luna.

"Do you miss your mum, Luna?"

"Oh, yes. I don't remember her terribly well, though, but I do miss her terribly. It's not as though I'll ever completely lose her, though. She's still with me, if not the same way she was before. And think, if she were alive, I don't know if I would have become great friends with Harry."

"Why's that?"

"Well, you know thestrals, those animals we rode to the Ministry two years ago, how you can only see them if you've seen someone die? She was the only person I'd seen die before I met Harry. That was one thing we talked about earlier in the year, since it was only after Cedric's death that he became able to see them, too. If I hadn't been able to see them, well, Dad probably would have told me about them anyways, but it wouldn't have been the same, you know?"

"Good you can think of it that way..."

"You can, too, if you decide to."

"It's just...I killed seven men, Luna. Most of whom have families. Three had sons in my year, not counting Malfoy, and he was the survivor, anyway. I mean, I talked with Harry about his anger, but this isn't the same. I just don't understand how I could be so...ruthless, so cold. How I could kill them with barely a second's thought about it - I mean, isn't that exactly the type of behaviour we hate Bellatrix Lestrange for? And I can do the exact same thing. I've tortured, I've killed, lied, manipulated, stolen..."

"Sometimes, in order to do the right thing in the end, you have to do the wrong thing in the moment."

"Come again?"

"Sometimes, you have to do something bad, to set up the stage so that you can succeed at making something better, on a bigger scale. Killing seven people who spent their lives hating, torturing, and murdering innocent people...sometimes is the trade you have to make for saving thousands more innocent people."

Unsure of how to respond, Hermione simply laid her head on Luna's small shoulder and began to cry, feeling safely nestled within the arms and long blonde hair of the woman holding her.

**Draco swung himself into his seat,** accepting a fag offered to him by his uncle at his left. His mother glanced at Rodolphus disapprovingly, but he just laughed, and Draco chose to ignore her almost entirely. Lucius reassuringly grasped her hand as they sat down.

"Just because he's old enough..." he overheard her whisper to him, but tuned out the rest of the sentence. He was letting himself have fun with being legal. He wasn't back at Hogwarts, he wasn't back with his friends; no, he was at home in the massive mansion with a dozen Death Eaters twice his age who spent their days torturing his most recent ex. What the fuck did they expect him to do, but read, sleep, smoke, drink, practise magic, and have sex? He was seventeen, for Merlin's sake!

"So we've come to the month's end, and still nothing this week?" Lord Voldemort clarified after hearing Bellatrix' report attesting to Hermione's lack of submission.

"She knows, my lord. She knows she is the only key we really have - she knows we cannot lose her without jeopardising our own success - she knows we cannot kill her, my Lord," Bellatrix contested.

"Then change that," he griped as though it were the easiest answer in the world.

"But- how, my Lord?"

"There's got to be something you haven't done to her, someone who hasn't tortured her in the time she's been here..."

"Well, yes, but if that doesn't work, my Lord," Rodolphus said. "She's either killed, or come dangerously close to killing, anyone who's gotten near her!"

"Well, if she hasn't said anything by this time next week...we kill her."

**Draco could have sworn his heart stopped beating.**


	16. In the Name of Misbehaviour

_**[Warning: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS THE DROPPING OF BOMBS AND THE CULMINATION OF TENSIONS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.]**_

**"Carnival Of Rust" by Poets of the Fall**

_Do you breathe the name / of your saviour / in your hour of need / _  
_and taste the blame / if the flavour / should remind you of greed / _  
_of implication, insinuation / and ill will / 'til you cannot lie still / _  
_in all this turmoil / before red cape and foil / come closing in for a kill_

_Come feed the rain / 'cause I'm thirsty for your love / dancing underneath the skies of lust / _  
_yeah, feed the rain / 'cause without your love my life / ain't nothing but this carnival of rust_

_It's all a game / avoiding failure / when true colours will bleed / _  
_all in the name / of misbehaviour / and the things we don't need /_  
_I lust for after / no disaster can touch / touch us anymore / _  
_and more than ever / I hope to never fall / where enough is not the same it was before_

_Come feed the rain / 'cause I'm thirsty for your love / dancing underneath the skies of lust / _  
_yeah, feed the rain / 'cause without your love my life / ain't nothing but this carnival of rust /_  
_yeah, feed the rain / 'cause I'm thirsty for your love / dancing underneath the skies of lust / _  
_yeah, feed the rain / 'cause without your love my life / ain't nothing but this carnival of rust_

_Don't walk away / don't walk away / oh, when the world is burning /_  
_don't walk away / don't walk away / oh, when the heart is yearning /_  
_don't walk away / don't walk away / oh, when the world is burning /_  
_don't walk away / don't walk away / oh, when the heart is yearning_

_**"Granger, I am not kidding.** I will pay you to do this."_

_Hermione scoffed._

_"We have had this conversation before, Draco. I am not letting you pay me to sleep with you."_

_She pushed past him, beginning to walk away. He grabbed her arm, twisting her around to face him and pressing her back up against the bookshelf. She stumbled over her own feet, and let out a gasp._

_"Tsk, tsk, Hermione, clumsy, clumsy," Draco teased, shortening the distance between their faces, fingers wrapped around her wrist._

_"Clumsy. Not a whore."_

_"Christmas present," Draco offered._

_"For whom?" she exclaimed._

_"Well," he smirked. Hermione found it a bit harder than usual to maintain a reasonable heart rate as he kissed her._

**Draco heard what sounded like rats** scattering as he twisted his wand and opened the lock to the cellar. The rusted bars of the door creaked as he pushed forward and stepped inside, and he grimaced whilst struggling to close it behind himself.

_Blasted door...we really do need to get that fixed some time._

He turned his attention to the dark, damp cellar. He stepped gingerly to his right, walking to the location of one of the lanterns on the wall, and reached up towards it, flicking his wand and setting it ablaze. He aimed gently at a lantern farther away from the door and heard something stirring. He jumped although he knew it was most likely the person he had come to see. Lo and behold, a stream of blonde hair flashed out from behind a pillar, and he relaxed, tucking his wand back into his waistband. The woman walked, practically skipping, over to him.

"Odd time for tea, isn't it?" she questioned innocently, and he chuckled.

"No tea tonight, Luna. I need to ask a favour."

"A favour of me?"

"You seem surprised," observed Draco.

"It's been a while since anyone has asked a favour of me. Besides, what could I possibly do I for you?"

Draco hesitated, pursing his lips and shifting his nervous glance between Luna's curious, starry eyes and the stone floor.

"When you were brought here," he began, and she nodded, indicating that she was listening, as though he could ever have a doubt of that.

"They asked you the same questions that they've been asking Hermione..."

"You want to know if I know the answers," Luna stated bluntly.

"Put simply, yes," affirmed Draco.

"In your head it is more complex?"

"Well- I need to be able to convince the other Death Eaters that Hermione gave up the answers."

Luna laughed.

"How on earth- she would never give up that information!"

"That's the point, Luna. That's why I needed to ask you."

"Needed to? Oh, I thought you were just curious. You never said you needed to know."

"Okay, do you want the whole story?"

"That would probably be rather helpful, Draco, yes."

"You-Know-Who decided that if Hermione doesn't tell them what they need to know within the week...Luna, they're going to kill her if she doesn't say, and she's not going to say, and-"

"But how would you convince them it was her? I mean, you would have to be alone with her for there to be reasonable opportunity, and I'm pretty sure You-Know-Who and the other Death Eaters aren't exactly comfortable with the two of you being left alone. Not that I blame them, I mean, do you?"

"Yes," Draco sneered. Luna rolled her eyes.

**Hermione pressed her back tightly** against the stone pillar. Luna's sweater was hardly adequate and she was shivering. She felt a shift of movement and heard a very soft grunt of surprise from Luna, but fell back asleep almost immediately, flashing back to the previous December.

_Fred dangled the letter above Hermione's head. She swung around excitedly, dropping her book onto the living room floor as she jumped off the couch and chased after him._

_"Who's it from?" she exclaimed, trying to reach it as he threw it to George and gripped her wrists tightly. _

_"Fred! George! Come on!"_

_"It's Christmas Eve, Hermione! Have a little fun!" George shouted, slipping his finger into the envelope. _

_"Hey! That's for me!"_

_George sighed, feigning great frustration. Fred released her, and as she rubbed her sore wrists George tossed the letter to her. She jumped to catch it and swiftly opened it as soon as Fred and George were summoned away by their mother._

Oh no..._ she resisted the urge to groan out loud as she read the letter._

You're with the Weaselbeezes, right? Wrong. Not tonight. Prepare for a lavish Christmas Eve complete with supper, champagne and a very special gift. Dressing up of a certain sort is preferable but dressing down is compulsory for the festivities currently planned. Diagon Alley, five-thirty.

_Hermione heard Ginny and Harry upstairs and an idea popped into her mind. She bit her lip, smiling, and rushed up the steps._

_"Hey, Gin? Ginny? Do you still have that pretty little Christmas outfit?"_

**Draco sighed,** anxiously rolling the parchment between his hands.

"Luna, I actually - I have one other favour to ask," he said reticently.

"Another, Draco?" she said teasingly, seeing that he was nervous and gently patting his muscular thigh.

"What now?" she smiled.

"What do you know about memory spells?"

Luna scrunched her eyebrows.

"Not much that I remember...what do you need help with?"

"I made - there was a night - a while ago - I - I wiped Hermione's memory and - and I - I don't know if that was the right thing. I'm kind of regretting it, I mean. I shouldn't be, I should regret what I did, not making her forget about it, but I-"

"What did you do?"

"Last- last Christmas Eve, I had her come over, since I was the only one here, and- well, it was a really nice night and all. I made supper, showed her around, and we danced and drank champagne and had sex on the piano and in my bed and - okay, I won't go into that, but you get the point, Luna - and it was great, we had a great time..."

"So why did you wipe her memory?"

"I got carried away, or drunk maybe, I don't think I meant to-"

"Draco," Luna murmured sternly. Draco's fearful eyes carefully met hers, and she smiled again. "Draco," she said, more gently this time.

"I said...I said that I loved her."

**Draco forced himself not to shiver** as he realised that his aunt and uncle both were staring towards him. He didn't know what to focus on. His options were slim, and after the previous night he wasn't sure he could handle fixing his gaze on the brunette bleeding and writhing on the floor.

_If only you weren't so goddam stubborn, Granger. If only._

He gritted his teeth, watching Hermione being taunted. He had been there when the older Death Eaters had collectively decided that the one topic they had walked on eggshells with was sex and that they should use that to be more effective, but he hadn't known that their decision was going to result in them trying to sexually assault her. It was one thing to call her names - another entirely to hold her down and gyrate against her whilst interrogating her. And Draco was no longer able to convince himself that he accepted her being made the victim of either.


	17. Feel You in My Dreams and I Don't Sleep

_**[Warning: This chapter includes mild discussion of plans to rape Hermione. Not graphic but potentially triggering.]**_

**"Snow White Queen" by Evanescence**

_Stoplight / lock the door / don't look back / _  
_undress in the dark / and hide from you / all of you / _  
_you'll never know / the way your words have haunted me /_  
_I can't believe / you'd ask these things of me / you don't know me_

_You belong to me / my snow white queen / there's nowhere to run / so let's just get it over /_  
_soon I know you'll see / you're just like me / don't scream anymore my love / 'cause all I want is you_

_Wake up / in a dream / frozen fear / all your hands on me / I can't scream / I can't scream /_  
_I can't escape / the twisted way you think of me / _  
_I feel you / in my dreams and I don't sleep / I don't sleep_

_You belong to me / my snow white queen / there's nowhere to run / so let's just get it over /_  
_soon I know you'll see / you're just like me / don't scream anymore my love / 'cause all I want is you_

_I can't save your life / though nothing I bleed for is more tormenting /_  
_I'm / losing my mind / and you just stand there / and stare as / my world divides_

_You belong to me / my snow white queen / there's nowhere to run / so let's just get it over /_  
_soon I know you'll see / you're just like me / don't scream anymore my love / 'cause all I want is you_

**Hermione jolted awake in a cold sweat,** greeted almost immediately by the bony but warm arms of the woman beside her. Luna's hair cascaded into her own as Luna planted a reassuring kiss at the top of Hermione's forehead.

"Did Draco die again?" she asked gently. Hermione nodded stiffly. She'd been having the nightmares since the night of the wedding, since she'd realised that despite their hollow promises they would not have withstood being pitted against each other, that had he been one of the Death Eaters send to attack her the outcome likely would not have been in either of their favours. The Death Eaters knew they'd been together, and that put Draco on rather thin ice. If he said or did the wrong thing, if they thought he was still interested in her, even a little, his life was on the line, and she knew better than to think they'd hesitate much before hurting him.

_This was entirely why we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place...not just that we couldn't keep that stupid promise about not caring, but everything we've put in jeopardy as a result! Apparently my sanity is another thing I am in grave danger of losing. How pathetic - to physically defend yourself for months, only to be driven crazy by nightmares about your Death Eater boyfriend - or ex-boyfriend - whatever the bloody hell he is now!_

She buried her head deeper into Luna's shoulder and burst into tears.

"I had no way of predicting it would come this far...how was I supposed to know I'd go crazy?"

"You've not gone crazy, 'Mione," Luna assured her with confidence. "I just think - well, if I may, Hermione, I think you've fallen in love."

**Bellatrix threw Hermione to the floor** and stomped over to the gathering of adult Death Eaters. Angry whispers travelled from their heated conversation to the other side of the room where Draco and his mother were standing. Draco had an unanswered urge to help Hermione up; he gripped his mother's arm even tighter, trying to look her in the eye as she lovingly stroked his hair. His heart sped faster and faster as Voldemort's statement rang in his head, giving him a headache.

_"If she hasn't said anything by this time next week...we kill her."_

Draco knew his plan was risky. He knew that if he was caught he was a dead man. A disgrace to all: to the Malfoy bloodline, the Black family, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Slytherin House, the name of wizard. Of course there was also the chance that the plan would fail otherwise, and that - that was the biggest risk of all, that Hermione and Luna would not make it to safety.

_**Hermione nervously released **__Remus' hand, shivering. She thanked him and hugged him awkwardly, trying to keep her arms down so that he could not feel her dress through her jacket. _

_"You're very welcome, Hermione. Say hello and happy Christmas to your parents for me," Remus said, gently kissing her hair and then waving goodbye and Disapparating back to the Burrow. Hermione shut her eyes and took a deep breath. _

Here goes nothing...

_"Fancy meeting you here," came a familiar, deep voice from behind her. She whipped around and half-heartedly stifled a smile. _

_"Likewise," she said softly._

**Draco flopped his bookmark into his book** and laid the novel on the table, reaching out his arm to Orion as he landed regally by Draco's setting. The owl deposited a slip of parchment in Draco's fingers and flew off, flapping his wings so forcefully Draco's tea almost spilt. Draco rolled his eyes at the bird and untied the bow on the letter.

_Dear Draco, _  
_My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. Thank you greatly for advising us on this recent leak. The favour which you asked of us will be fulfilled when you see most fit. Please reply with the safest time to perform this extraction. _  
_Sincerely, _  
_Professor Minerva McGonagall_

He glanced over the short correspondence for a few moments, jumping nearly out of his seat when the door creaked open behind him.

"Oh, Draco darling, I didn't mean to startle you," Narcissa cooed, and Draco stood to leave, shoving his chair into its place at the table.

"Draco!" she exclaimed frustratedly. He ignored her, instead thumping up the stairs to his bedroom. A few moments later he was joined by the likeness of a small blue dragon. He sighed but paid attention nonetheless as it relayed an apologetic message from his mother.

"Also, we will be gathering rather soon. You should return downstairs within the next few minutes, darling."

_**Hermione's mouth fell open as she beheld**__ the sight in front of her. If she hadn't known where she was, she would have postulated that she were standing in a palace ballroom, rather than the centre room of the mansion she had recently entered. The expansive windows did not let in much light, but the room was lit instead by the scintillating crystals of the chandelier in the middle of the high ceiling as they reflected the rays of the setting sun. The polished wood floor looked as though it had never before been walked upon. Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that Draco was trying to suppress a smug expression._

_"I'm not sure I can handle seeing any of the other rooms, Draco, if this is what your parents use as a parlour," she said somewhat teasingly._

_"Don't worry, the kitchen's not much," he chuckled, gesturing for her to continue over to the ornate door at the opposite side of the room._

_"Comparatively, that is," he added, and Hermione rolled her eyes, but with a gentle smile. She grasped his hand and they traipsed across the room. Draco used his wand to help hold the heavy door open as he swung Hermione through the doorway. She cocked her head immediately after the door closed, turning to see a pot sitting on top of the stove. Having not known Draco was cooking the meal himself - or that he could cook at all - she was mystified as she very intently watched him put the finishing touches on their feast for two. Despite spending so much time with the Weasleys, it still surprised her to see vegetables chopping themselves. _

_Every once in a while Draco would turn his eyes and look at her, and she pretended to be glancing around the rest of the room, hoping that he would assume the colour in her face was caused instead by the warmth of the room._

_"You look a bit flushed, Hermione. Sure you wouldn't like to take your coat off?" Draco asked. Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but before she could manage words, she began to laugh. Draco stepped away from the stove, looking at her with a confused expression. She glanced nervously at the ground as she transferred her body weight from her bum to her legs and stood up. She reached down to the hem of her coat, her hands close to trembling as they began to undo the buttons. Draco watched closely, as though studying her fingers, then started to laugh heartily at the sight of the fluffy white faux fur now peeking out from in between the lapels of Hermione's coat._

_"You didn't," he gasped. _

_"I did," she sighed._

_"I thought in the Muggle world you had to be good to get your presents."_

_"That only applies to the presents from Father Christmas. Anything goes, for the others."_

_"Anything goes...I suppose I'll have to remember that, won't I?"_

_Hermione furrowed her eyebrows in confusion during the seconds before the smiling Draco pulled her closer and pressed his lips to hers._

**The group of Death Eaters stood** on the other side of the room, seemingly arguing amongst themselves. The happenings were curiously similar to those of the previous day, Draco thought, but did not mention it to anyone. But today was going to different. Today he was going to take his stand. He wriggled free of his mother and swaggered over to the anxious horde.

"Are we just going to leave her lying there or what?" he asked with a painful degree of arrogance.

"Not for long," Rodolphus sneered villainously at him. "We're going to switch things up a bit. See, your mummy will take her upstairs and help us pretend she can still be pretty, and she'll lock her in a bedroom upstairs, and then Dolohov here is going to take his turn and see what he can get out of her when she's...more vulnerable."

"Dolohov?" Draco inquired, buying himself time to quell his immediate burning anger.

"Oh, do you have a problem with that?" Dolohov jibed with a taunting voice and condescending gaze.

"Well, I just think...this plan might be more effective if the person tasked to complete it had...experience. In bed."

He shrugged off a vicious glare from Dolohov.

"With her, that is," Draco added, concealing that he had in fact intended to insult the other man.

The Death Eaters crowded around his aunt turned away, giving her room to march towards Draco. She held up her hand, letting them know they were expected to remain silent. Draco focused his energy on keeping his cool as she circled around him, thinking. Nearly half an hour later, she finally spoke.

"Draco may have a valid point."

She snapped her fingers above her head, and her sister rushed over, pushing through the Death Eaters to stand by Bellatrix' right hand.

"Take her to Draco's room when you're done," Bellatrix said flatly, and walked out of the parlour.


	18. Felt That I'd Be Lost Without You

_**[Warning: Foreplay, profanity, torture, minor character death, parental involvement]**_

**"Whatever It Takes" by Lifehouse**

_A strangled smile / fell from your face / _  
_it kills me that I / hurt you this way / _  
_the worst part is that / I didn't even know / _  
_now there's a million / reasons for you to go / _  
_but if you can find a reason to stay_

_I'll do whatever it takes / to turn this around / _  
_I know what's at stake / I know that I've let you down / _  
_and if you give me a chance / believe that I can change / _  
_I'll keep us together / whatever it takes_

_She said "if we're gonna / make this work /_  
_you gotta let me inside / even though it hurts /_  
_don't hide the broken / parts that I need to see /_  
_she said "like it or not / it's the way it's gotta be /_  
_you gotta love yourself / if you can ever love me" _

_I'll do whatever it takes / to turn this around / _  
_I know what's at stake / I know that I've let you down / _  
_and if you give me a chance / and give me a break /_  
_I'll keep us together / I know you / deserve much better_

_But remember the time I told you / the way that I felt / _  
_that I'd be lost without you / and never find myself / _  
_let's hold onto each other / above everything else / start over / start over_

_I'll do whatever it takes / to turn this around / _  
_I know what's at stake / I know that I've let you down / _  
_and if you give me a chance / believe that I can change / _  
_I'll keep us together / whatever it takes_

_**The fingers of Draco's left hand**__ ran along the seam of Hermione's knee-highs, whilst his right palm lay flat against the small of her back and his mouth watered as it pushed against hers. After a few minutes he remembered that they had not yet had supper, and begrudgingly distanced himself from her. While he was away, Hermione peeled off her coat and grabbed out of its pocket the hat to complete Ginny's little costume. She grunted when the sphere of fluff bounced onto her face and swatted it away. Draco looked over and laughed as he portioned out the roast vegetables and chicken and levitated the plates onto the table. He swiftly grabbed a large bottle of champagne and floated two glasses over to their places, setting the bottle down in the middle of the plates and leaning back into Hermione and continuing to kiss her. _

_After a few moments she pulled her lips away, keeping her hands pressed on his broad shoulders and moving no other part of her body. _

_"Shall we eat before supper goes cold?" she whispered. Draco chuckled and kissed her forehead, and turned away to pour the champagne. Hermione slid down into the exquisite oak chair before one of the place settings and tenderly plucked her glass from Draco's fingers when he offered it to her. They spent a short moment in an almost awkward silence before she softly spoke. _

_"To us." _

_Draco returned her toast with an equally soft murmur, a tap of his glass, and a nervous smile Hermione could tell he was working to keep hidden. _

_"To us."_

**Draco stifled a shiver as best he could** as his aunt marched back into the parlour, her face emotionless as she clasped a familiar-looking dagger, sliding it into her husband's open palm. Once he could see the monogram on its handle, he immediately recognised it.

"What makes you think you can use that?" he exclaimed, earning a few condescending glances.

"It's just a test run, darling," his aunt sneered.

"It's a goddam knife. There's nothing to test."

"Pity," Bellatrix griped, turning back to her husband and gesturing him to the other side of the room. The scenario was really beginning to worry Draco. Perhaps it was because she had heard their plans earlier, but even though Hermione's hands were bound together she hadn't continued to protest after being dragged from the dungeon for the second time that day. His fear was soon lessened, as mere moments after Rodolphus yanked her up from the frigid floor and shoved his hands onto her hips, she swung herself around in such a manner as to cast the dagger between her hands and sever some of the threading of the rope. She struggled for a number of seconds, and then Draco saw the rope fall to her feet.

Draco's father and aunt were visibly angered, but Draco could see that his aunt had decided to continue to follow their standard of having a one-to-one ratio with their victims. However, they were trying new things this week; since it had been decided that without the admission they kept Hermione in hopes of gaining she was to be killed, it was no longer important to ensure that she could withstand anything. If she died in the process, they no longer cared. And that- that thinned the ice even further. Draco sharply drew his breath as Hermione's low cries travelled throughout the room.

Rodolphus managed to rip off Hermione's jacket, and flung it back towards his wife, who motioned to Draco's mother. Narcissa begrudgingly picked it from the floor and hung it tenderly on the back of a chair, and Draco watched her closely in an attempt to distract himself, able to observe that she was uncomfortable as well.

This made him feel slightly more connected to her, as he could tell that much of her discomfort stemmed from her ability to read him, to see that he never stopped pondering how to save Hermione without saving her and without incriminating himself and his family, and from knowing that if he were to help Hermione any punishment would be worse than that of helping a prisoner to whom he was...unattached. His mother, naturally, would worry that he would decide to betray them, especially as a betrayal of that certain sort would serve to jeopardise Draco's parents.

Draco could see, as Narcissa's silvery eyes looked back at him and then at Hermione, that some part of her knew that he was acting, that he had lied to her and continued to lie to her. He could not help but think how he had wiped Hermione's memory in fear of both positive and negative consequences, in fear both of being rejected by her and of being rejected by others in the case that they were in fact together. He had for a while convinced himself that he had become numb enough that the feelings resulting in his fear of being rejected by Hermione had been eradicated, but it was now too late.

This was no longer about him - that was how he knew. And then there was, of course, Luna, who did not hesitate to indicate to him that she did not believe his claim that his confession of love to Hermione had been rather accidental. Indeed, he had not planned it; indeed, he was at the time swept up in the moment; nonetheless, he had meant it, and were he to have repeated those words at any point since he would have meant them then. His plan was now to save her, regardless of the consequences reflected onto him. Until he was sure they were alone he could not evince this to any other person, and the energy he invested in hiding his intent was dwindling, but he managed.

**Hermione attempted to flail her arms,** biting her tongue to keep from screaming as pressure built up in the cavities of her chest and stomach. The larger man was becoming increasingly frustrated as the abrasions and lacerations he inflicted did him no better than any other attempt he had made. She grimaced at her observation that the handle of the weapon her current torturer wielded was engraved with Draco's initials, and then her eyes widened at a new and bright thought. If no one else was able to break her, would they make him - and would he? Earlier the insistence was that she be raped - she could hear them well enough from the other end of the parlour to make out a fair number of their words - and who better to sexually elicit something from her than a sexual partner?

_**Previous**__ sexual partner,_ she thought forcibly, though she knew that such mantras had become useless.

His hands again gripping her waist, Rodolphus shoved his mouth towards her. She managed to turn so that her back faced him, now able to feel cold metal scrape against her chest and neck. He whispered angrily at her; she perceived his words as a sort of concrete threat, but her own plotting was rather a distraction. He pulled the knife away from her, and her attention jerked back to her precise predicament as she did her best at dodging the blade as it hurtled towards her side. His grip became loose enough that she was able to pry it from him and follow through with the thrusting movement, setting it instead in the middle of his chest and ripping it out the most painful way she knew how, resulting in his cradling his chest in his arms and collapsed to the floor as he bled profusely.

Bellatrix shrieked, and she and Narcissa rushed over. Hermione backed away quickly, but as she made it to the stairs, was grabbed by the Snatcher who had brought her to the Manor, who rotated her back around and began reaping his own punishment. The man stopped Greyback as the werewolf also approached her. The chaos then ensuing tore Hermione's breath from her as she was forced into hand-to-hand combat with not one, not two, not even three, but four male Death Eaters. If she had become distracted, as she had on previous days, she would have wondered how these men's wives regarded their tendencies to turn any female prisoner into a sexual object. Did loyalty mean nothing to any of them - with the exception only of the Malfoys - unless that loyalty was to Voldemort? She did not know, and she hoped it was not so, but she certainly did not expect the best from any of these very strange men.

Not strangely nor unexpectedly, only Lucius Malfoy remained on the sidelines, though she was not sure which Malfoy he was there for - himself, out of a plain disinterest in pursuing Hermione, his wife, out of a lack of intent to pursue any other woman, let alone in her presence, or his son, out of a conscious or subconscious knowledge that Draco would never forgive Lucius were he to commit such a crime towards the object of Draco's own attraction.

**"Plan to go out with a bang, do you?"** Bellatrix screamed at the top of her lungs, resting her hand on her sister's shoulder in order to rise from the floor and invade the proceedings on the other side of the room so that she could project more directly towards Hermione. Draco struggled to keep his pupils from widening and his teeth from audibly chattering.

"Not without a fight, certainly. If anyone's going to give you a run for your money, Miss Black, you've met her," Hermione jeered. How she could dare to speak to his aunt like that, particularly in this context, Draco could not fathom.

Narcissa glanced up from Rodolphus' body and caught a glimpse of Draco hiding almost successfully the intense fear pulsating through his veins, Lucius standing a few meters away and glancing over at the young man sceptically. She looked away, then gently stood up and walked calmly over to her sister, laying a gentle hand on the woman's shaking shoulder.

"Perhaps...perhaps, Bella, it is time for the Mudblood to come with me," she murmured. Bellatrix raised her hand to her shoulder, gripping her sister's as she ran her tongue behind her teeth in thought. She sighed.

"You heard her," she sneered towards Wormtail, whose greasy hands held the young woman at wandpoint, and he reluctantly released her.

**Narcissa extended her free hand** out in front of herself, finding it to be, after a sceptical look from Hermione, accepted without fuss. Hermione approached the older woman, who leant over to kiss Bellatrix' cheek and then lightly tugged her along while advancing up the marble staircase.

It seemed to Hermione to be vaguely familiar, as though on one of the nights they had slept in the same bed Draco had a vivid nightmare and described some of his home to her. She'd had him do that before, when he had one of his nightmares and they were in the same bed. She'd learned far more about Draco and his family on those nights than she had in any snooping she had done with Harry - which was saying a good bit about all that he had divulged. She had supposed that perhaps his openness was out of a realisation that she already had seen him react to the nightmare, that his pride may have been more injured had he simply rolled over rather than given her the chance to know just how frightening the things that plagued him really were. Later she suspected that he may have legitimately trusted her, or actually wanted her to know such details, perhaps even felt that he owed her such knowledge.

Yet, those were the sort of things a man would tell his _girlfriend_ if she were to catch him awakened in a cold sweat by the daemons in his home and their insistance to be also in his head, and it had taken her this long to realise that he had ultimately treated her as nothing less, that when thinking abstractly she really did like that, that it was only when she forced herself to include Harry, Ron, and Voldemort in every life decision she made that she became unhappy with the way Draco treated her.

_It would have been easier to send him away, so much simpler to give him up, if he wasn't worth being with. That was always the trouble, wasn't it? Not that he was Malfoy, full of hatred, secrecy, and arrogance, but that he was Draco - full of care, respect, affection, trust, humour, loyalty... _

She shivered as Narcissa led her into a massive bedroom and over to a beautiful vanity, taking her seat carefully and trying her best not to cringe as the woman swept Hermione's hair behind her shoulders. She was curiously gentle, taking care to relieve the knots and tangles which Luna had been unable to do away with, and being vigilant so that she did not pull too hard on Hermione's scalp. Eventually, Hermione convinced herself that she was safe enough and shut her eyes, picturing - as she always did when Luna did her hair - Mrs Weasley sitting behind her right before her fifth year, jesting around with Hermione and Ginny and braiding the hair of both with precision. Hermione ached for such a mother again, and as Narcissa progressed to other aspects of 'readying' Hermione, she could see in those silver-blue eyes a recognition of that burning need. Hermione watched in the mirror as Narcissa rummaged through the wardrobe against the opposite wall, pulling out an elegant blue dress and laying it on the bed.

Narcissa returned to the vanity, gestured to Hermione to stand up, and led Hermione through a door on the adjacent wall into an expansive lavatory. A flick of her wand conjured an sourceless flow of steaming water into a bath tub stationed in the middle of the room, and flames within the lanterns spread across the lavender-coloured walls.

"May I ask you something?" Hermione said, almost a whisper.

"Of course," Narcissa murmured, ceasing her search for body soap in order to stand straight up and look Hermione in the eyes.

"Why are you so kind to me?"

Narcissa failed to stifle a bout of nervous laughter as she worked to answer.

"We have not formally met, Miss Granger, unless I am mistaken. I trust you know...my son is not his father, by any means. Similarly, I am neither my husband nor either of my sisters, nor a Death Eater, contrary to the beliefs of many, and my loyalty- my loyalty lies not with the Black family, nor Slytherin House, nor with the Dark Lord. My loyalty lies with my son, and my son's heart-" Narcissa choked up. "I have seen the fear in his eyes, when you are in grave danger, the desperation...it would be wrong of me..." her voice trailed off, but she could see in Hermione's eyes which still met hers that Hermione understood, and whirled back around to open another drawer.

"Thank you," Hermione said after a moment of silence. Narcissa turned back around and offered her a gentle smile in return before presenting her with the fruits of her search - a bar of unscented soap, two small, unlabelled bottles of rose-scented hair products, and a washcloth. The entire room was strangely vacant, the only things visible on the shelves being a scant collection of bath products which suggested Narcissa and her husband shared such necessities. Narcissa told Hermione that she would be just inside the bedroom, and draped a bath towel over the handle of the door between the rooms, leaving Hermione alone. It was the first time she had been entirely alone since being captured, and she involuntarily, almost immediately began to weep passionately.


	19. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die

_**[Warning: Sexual content, angry!Hermione, and the dropping of metaphorical bombs]**_

**"One More Night" by Maroon 5**

_You and I go hard / at each other / like we're going to war / _  
_you and I go rough / we keep throwing things / and slamming the doors / _  
_you and I get so / damn dysfunctional / we stopped keeping score / _  
_you and I get sick / yeah, I know that we can't / do this no more, yeah_

_But baby / there you go again / there you go again / making me love you / _  
_yeah I stopped / using my head / using my head / let it all go / _  
_got you stuck / on my body / on my body / like a tattoo / _  
_and now I'm / feeling stupid / feeling stupid / crawling back to you_

_So I cross my heart and I hope to die / that I'll only stay with you one more night / _  
_and I know I said it a million times / but I'll only stay with you one more night_

_Try to tell you no / but my body keeps on / telling you yes / _  
_try to tell you to stop / but your lipstick got me / so out of breath / _  
_I'll be waking up / in the morning / probably hating myself / _  
_and I'll be waking up / feeling satisfied but / guilty as hell, yeah_

_But baby / there you go again / there you go again / making me love you / _  
_yeah I stopped / using my head / using my head / let it all go / _  
_got you stuck / on my body / on my body / like a tattoo / _  
_and now I'm / feeling stupid / feeling stupid / crawling back to you_

_So I cross my heart and I hope to die / that I'll only stay with you one more night / _  
_and I know I said it a million times / but I'll only stay with you one more night_

_Yeah, baby / give me one more night / yeah, baby, give me one more night / whoa, yeah / _  
_yeah, baby / give me one more night / oh, yeah, yeah, yeah_

_But baby / there you go again / there you go again / making me love you / _  
_yeah I stopped / using my head / using my head / let it all go / _  
_got you stuck / on my body / on my body / like a tattoo / _  
_and now I'm / feeling stupid / feeling stupid / crawling back to you_

_So I cross my heart and I hope to die / oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh / _  
_that I'll only stay with you one more night / oh oh oh oh oh oh /_  
_and I know I said it a million times / oh, I said it a million times /_  
_ but I'll only stay with you one more night / yeah, baby give me one more night_

_So I cross my heart and I hope to die / yeah, yeah / that I'll only stay with you one more night / yeah, yeah / _  
_and I know I said it a million times / yeah, yeah / but I'll only stay with you one more night / yeah, yeah_

_I don't know / whatever_

**Hermione trembled as the blue** silk cascaded over her body. The dress fit suspiciously well, and it certainly was not what she would have thought the Death Eaters would have her put in. They harassed her about being a whore, for Merlin's sake, the last thing they would want was her looking legitimately nice, wasn't it? Then again, Narcissa seemed to be the only person who ultimately had any input in what Hermione wore anyways.

"This- I wore this dress once, a long time ago - the first night I stayed over at the Manor," Narcissa murmured as she ran her fingers through Hermione's hair and strung a few necklaces around her neck. Hermione touched them gingerly, unaccustomed to the feel of the cold metal against her chest.

"Is the Manor...automatically inherited, generation to generation?"

"Why? Worried you might be back?" Narcissa said with the slightest hint of teasing.

Hermione felt a lump grow in her throat.

"You know something I do not," she said slowly.

"Only the way he looks at you."

"But surely that wouldn't- never mind. Not as if it matters anyways."

"Everything matters."

Narcissa smoothed the last of Hermione's hair down over her shoulders, and they spent a moment in a tense silence before Narcissa walked silently to the door of the room and opened it. She stretched her hand back towards Hermione. Unsure yet curiously unafraid, Hermione strutted over to her and laid her palm on top of Narcissa's cold fingers, and was subsequently led down an eerily familiar corridor that seemed to never end. By the time Narcissa stopped to open another door, Hermione figured they must have made it to the other end of the mansion, perhaps another wing.

The door opened into a massive bedroom which was very, very obviously Draco's. Adorned with Slytherin house garb and an unbelievable quantity of Quidditch memorabilia along with dozens upon dozens of books, the room was lit by the sunlight coming in from a large window with open curtains. Narcissa waited for Hermione's eyes to drift back to her own before signaling her departure, and soon after Hermione began nervously studying the room. First she rifled through the books on the beautiful Secretary desk, then she turned her interest to photographs which seemed to chronicle Draco's childhood. Blaise Zabini looked to be a greater presence than she would have expected, and much to her surprise, some of the earlier photographs even included Tonks.

**"Now, you're sure you know** what you're asking?" Lucius pestered, trying to avoid noticing the sceptical glares being given to his son.

"Father, I've been here nearly every day, I know exactly what she's been asked!" Draco returned.

"I'm only making sure," Lucius defended. Draco was _almost_ thankful; if his father wasn't buggering him, it would have been his aunt, and Draco wanted no part of those interactions. Draco turned away and swaggered to the middle of the parlour, stooping down to the floor to retrieve his dagger. Non-verbally he wiped it clean, and with a last arrogant survey of the room, he marched up the staircase, swirling right and beginning to run once he knew he was out of earshot. He waited for a moment in front of his door for his breath to return to normal, and then proceeded to fling it open. Hermione turned back towards him quickly, setting down a picture frame she was holding.

He had a matter of a few seconds to determine his final choice of path. It would have been safer to play Death Eater, see if she would simply answer him, go from there. But as she swung around to face him and the memories of the previous encounter they had shared in his room flooded his thoughts the hope of neutrality and coldness was lost to the wind. They stood for a few moments like that, absolutely silent and almost entirely frozen in place, before Hermione spoke, murmuring very softly, "Have I- have I been here more than once before?" Draco breathed in sharply, shutting his eyes and sighing a short moment later.

"You never were one for wasting breath..."

"And you have always been." The words felt less caustic than Draco could have expected. Sympathy, maybe. Certainly not-

"When?" Hermione continued curtly, and Draco sighed again, this time making a bigger point of it. He looked up at her to see that her own gaze was full of intent - no swaying to be managed.

"Christmas Eve," he conceded. Hermione became more tense, drawing into herself with furrowed eyebrows and crossed arms.

"Last Christmas Eve? But I- I was with- you wiped my memory! How dare you!" she realised, eyes widening with a hint of disgust and a tinge of fear.

"You didn't want to remember," he said matter-of-factly.

"Did you ask?" she shouted furiously. He opened his mouth to respond, but knew he had what she considered the wrong answer, and thus shut his mouth again.

"Draco!" she exclaimed, eliciting a low groan.

"I told you something I shouldn't have, you were unhappy, it seemed best."

"I was unhappy!" Hermione screamed with fleeting sarcasm. "That's no reason to take away a memory, Draco."

As a response to her increasingly pleading tone, Draco evaded her piercing eyes.

"Draco...most of our relationship has been based in falsehood. If you care for me at all...the least you can do is tell me the truth now, even if it's just this once."

"That's the problem, you see. This isn't exactly the kind of thing that you say once and it goes away and everything gets better, happily ever after with puppies and flowers and church bells."

"Obviously," she replied chidingly, and he shot her a confused glance.

"You've already tried that, haven't you? It doesn't seem to have worked yet," Hermione continued.

"An astute observation, Mud-" Draco paused, pursing his lips in frustration. "No. I can't. I just can't." He swung himself back around to the door. After a couple seconds he heard footsteps behind him, but was still surprised to see Hermione rush in front of him and block the door.

"What, Draco? What is it?" She struggled to keep her voice steady and full of anger, but her eyes barely stopped the tears which insisted on forming behind her eyelids.

"The truth, Draco, just this once. It's all I ask of you, please. I'll be out of your life soon enough, and then you'll never have to even think about it again."

"Well, that's the thing, I would_ like_ to think about it," Draco muttered in reply.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy, if there ever were something you were bad at, it's making sense."

"I do seem to have trouble with that, don't I?"

His heart fluttered as Hermione unsuccessfully stifled a laugh.

"I just don't want you to leave here hating me," he added, and she practically grimaced.

"Hate you? Draco, I could never hate you, not ever. Draco, I-"

His eyes were fixed on her anxiety-ridden expression immediately.

"I could never hate you," Hermione murmured, pretending as though it ended the sentence she had begun. No, as much as he had doubted it, Luna must have been right- the woman wouldn't even let him leave his own room because she needed answers from him, closure...

_Wasn't I supposed to be the one asking questions? Funny how things never go as planned when Hermione's involved. Ever._

**It was killing her,** being this close again. Absolutely killing her.

_Although, of all the ways to die..._

They were only talking and her heart rate could have put her past saving. Maybe this was his strategy? To get her to fall in love with him to the point where she was essentially hypnotised? No, Draco wouldn't do something like that. Besides, if he were trying for that, he would have simply turned on the charm when he laid eyes on her. The looking, naturally, he did a good bit of at first. It didn't bother her; she didn't blame him before and she didn't blame him now. She was bloody attractive, and of course Draco had less effort to put in than most people, as her body, clothing or not, was all but foreign to his.

She found herself biting her lip, trying not to think about how desperate she felt. She could have sworn she'd avoided schoolgirl crushes and sentiments of that sort, but her stomach disagreed with her on that account.

_Only a couple meters...pull yourself together, Hermione! You can make it through this._

She was so distracted, both in looking at him and in attempting not to, that she forgot to listen for a reply. She caught the end of his sentence, and her eyes immediately grew wide.

"Loved you," Draco sighed.

"What?" she stammered, and Draco swiftly withdrew back into himself, moving to push past her. She managed to stop him close to the door. He groaned, but gently repeated himself.

"I told you...that I loved you."

"And is that the truth?"

Draco hesitated, but mustered just enough voice to keep talking.

"Yes."

Hermione, with her eyes bugging out and her heart racing, tried to distract her attention from her emotions, and was rendered speechless.

"Here you go again, with the not talking and the trembling and the being angry with me-"

"How could you?"

"How could I say that?"

"No, how could you erase that? Why?"

"Hermione-"

"Did you never once think that maybe I was just speechless because having feelings for each other wasn't exactly what we signed up for and you never talk about your feelings that much and I was probably surprised and probably standing here scared out of my mind trying to figure out exactly how to tell you that I loved you too?!" she exclaimed.

Realising what she had said, she drew in a few small gasps, overwhelmed with the feeling of her entire body tensing up. Draco looked to be in shock as well.

"I- I love you, too, Draco," she whimpered. Once she was sure Draco was consciously deciding not to respond, she was greeted by two strong, familiar hands on her hips, gently, sensually, shoving her backwards. After over a month of torture the bricks felt harmless even against her bare back, and her focus remained trained on Draco.

**Having not kissed her in months,** the degree to which this night's first kiss drove Draco nearly wild was practically indescribable. Similar to before, which was nearly always amazing, he continued to pace himself in spite of all the passion stored up inside him just waiting desperately to be attended to. He had since realised, however, that his pangs and cravings were specifically for her, and having a greater acceptance of his attraction to her made an easier time of keeping himself in line.

He snapped away when she pulled herself away. She slid to the floor, using the bottom of the dress to dry the tears running down her face.

"What is it?"

"It's pathetic, isn't it? Bloody pathetic!"

"What's pathetic?"

"Five weeks - five weeks! - in Death Eater custody, tortured every day, still able to stand on my feet and fight them and shoot them snide remarks..."

"How is that pathetic?"

"It only took about a minute for my knees to collapse underneath me, just from a kiss..."

"No such thing as "just a kiss." You know that - not with us. And I don't particularly care to get over the way it feels every time that I kiss you," Draco continued, still standing centimeters away from Hermione and running his hands through her hair. After a moment he gathered much of it up into a haphazard ponytail, pressing her even tighter against the wall.

"Yes, but you're not the one falling down here," she whispered, automatically running her arms up around his neck.

"Maybe I ought to put you somewhere you can't fall, then."

Light flickered in Hermione's eyes when she realised exactly to what Draco was alluding, and an uncontrollable and possibly unprecedented smile swept across her lips. She gripped his hand and briskly led him into the middle of the room, near the side of the bed, stopping to pull him sharply back into her and continue kissing. Draco countered the momentum of his own body by pulling her up onto him, her legs gripping around his waist and her hands on his cheeks. After a moment he shoved her off of him and straightaway onto the mattress, wasting not a single second as he climbed upon the bed and then on top of her. The majority of his clothing was yanked from his body within moments, but Draco took care to undress Hermione far, far more slowly, taking his sweet time to explore her again, for the first time in far too long.


	20. Your Hands Will Hold Me Tight

_**[Warning: This chapter contains profanity, IMPLICIT SEXUAL ACTIVITY, parental interference, a love song, risky plotting on multiple fronts, romantic advances, and a plot twist straight from the Black family soap opera.]**_

_**[Note: The song appearing later in this chapter is "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra.]**_

**"Superstar" by Skye Sweetnam**

_Lost in my mind / where the path is hard to find / _  
_I'm captured by the dark / I'm trapped in an illusion /_  
_left on my own / the world empty and alone / _  
_in an eternal sleep / you've come awakened me_

_Through the battle / and the glory / you're the hero / in my story / _  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / _  
_you're my light / you're my torch/ you are my guide / through the dark /_  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / yeah / yeah_

_You tore down my walls / you fought your way inside / _  
_wrapped tightly around me / and carry me to safety / _  
_whisper in my ear / so only I can hear / _  
_your hands will hold me tight / on my piece you will find_

_Through the battle / and the glory / you're the hero / in my story / _  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / _  
_you're my light / you're my torch/ you are my guide / through the dark /_  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / yeah / yeah_

_Shout out / the negativity / _  
_shout out / all the nightmares underneath / _  
_you are / the reason why I'm free_

_You're afraid to lose my voice / all I hear is a loud noise /_  
_you breathe it into me / you hear when no one's listening /_  
_you know this song / you're the only harmony / _  
_when I've lost my melody / you sing it back to me_

_Through the battle / and the glory / you're the hero / in my story / _  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / _  
_you're my light / you're my torch/ you are my guide / through the dark /_  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / yeah / yeah_

_Through the battle / and the glory / you're the hero / in my story / _  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / _  
_you're my light / you're my torch/ you are my guide / through the dark /_  
_shining brightly / you are my superstar / yeah / yeah_

**Not wanting to move** from their eventual, climactic position, both from want of intimacy and closeness and from lack of physical energy, Hermione and Draco lay parallel to each other in the middle of the massive bed, both on their sides. Draco's arm wrapped tightly around Hermione's stomach. They didn't quite have the energy to talk, but after a few minutes Draco noticed that Hermione's mind was drifting.

"You're distracted," he whispered.

"No, I-" Hermione began, but abruptly stopped herself and shifted her body around so that she was facing him again. "I was just thinking how lovely it would be if this- this moment could last forever."

"Maybe it will," Draco offered. She gave a small smirk as a response to the bittersweet comment.

"They'll kill us. You know they will."

"Not if they don't know anything until after the war is over."

"Do you really think-"

"Once the war is over, once all this Death Eater bullshit is over and done with, there will be time."

"But does it make sense to try to-"

"Stop trying to make sense of everything, Hermione. Love- love isn't logical."

Hermione groaned, tucking her head closer into his chest.

"I like logic," she sighed.

"I hadn't noticed," Draco said teasingly, and Hermione mimed gently slapping him.

"Okay, so maybe I have. What of it?" he continued, and she unsuccessfully resisted the impulse to smile. Draco pulled her into him again, and her smile widened as they resumed kissing passionately. He withdrew after a few moments, and Hermione followed suit, but with an expression of intense confusion written in her face.

"You're beautiful," Draco whispered. "I don't think I've ever told you that."

"Not straightaway, no," Hermione replied, relaxing. They both reached back for another kiss, but right as they did there was a loud, urgent knock at the door. Draco groaned, but frantically yanked his boxers on and grabbed his wand, walking swiftly to the door as Hermione watched closely, retreating beneath the green silk sheets.

"Mother!" Draco exclaimed frustratedly. Narcissa seemed almost to ignore him, shoving her way into the room and shutting the door. She held Hermione's original clothing in her arms, and thrust it to the floor beside them.

"People are beginning to get suspicious, Draco, darling," Narcissa crooned. "I doubt you've got another thirty minutes." As she pronounced the word "you" she looked past Draco towards the bed. Hermione, of course, was listening intently, and caught the gesture. She slipped a blanket over her shoulders, wrapping it so that it covered most of her, and went to join them.

"They're going to kill me?" she inquired to Narcissa, who opened her mouth to respond but was cut off.

"No, they aren't," Draco said brusquely, pulling Hermione's hand into his own and nodding to his mother.

"Thank you, Mother," he said tersely, starting to walk slowly back to the bed. Narcissa drew a sharp breath, glancing between the two.

"I've no idea what you're up to," she whispered harshly, "but don't you** dare** get caught."

With that, Narcissa swiveled in place then exited the room.

_**Hermione was practically glued** to the bench. She'd had no idea Draco was able to play the piano - but when she thought about it she realised that she really didn't know much about him at all._

At least this explains the fingers... _she shrugged to herself, her eyes still following Draco's hands as they played a popular winter holiday song that she had never heard. Draco seemed to focus very intensely, only looking away twice to smile at Hermione's continued wonderment._

_"I don't really know any other songs that are applicable to this time of year," he sighed after finishing the piece, looking over at her as though she would have instructions. She didn't want to suggest the obvious; they'd already had sex twice that night, and frankly they needed a bit of variety._

_"Don't look at me, I don't know any!" she said brightly._

_"Oh! I have an idea!" Draco exclaimed, leaping up from the bench and leaving Hermione alone and confused. He returned a couple minutes later with a device identical to Ron's radio, and set it upon the piano. He twisted his wand to turn it to a specific channel, straightened his tie, and stretched his hand out to her as a strangely familiar song began playing. Molly only really listened to Celestina Warbeck, which this definitely was not, but her muggle parents listened to music a lot, and there was a good bit of overlap._

_She laid her hand in Draco's and hopped up from the bench. Right as he raised his arm and twisted her around the lyrics began and she immediately recognised the song. She felt as though her cheeks turned beet red, although Draco simply pulled her closer and continued dancing, and the world around her started to fade as she allowed herself to really be - as her muggle mother would say - swept off her feet. The expression sounded so effeminate and princessy Hermione could barely stand it, but neither she nor Draco gave her much time to ruminate over it._

**_...yes, you're lovely, with your smile so warm_**  
**_and your cheeks so soft._**  
**_There is nothing for me but to love you,_**  
**_and the way you look tonight..._**

_Hermione did, however, ruminate over the lyrics of the song, in an attempt to discern why Draco would have chosen such a song. A love song, for lack of better words. A legitimate love song._

What is he trying to - he can't - he doesn't - the song says - but he doesn't - no, he can't - I can't - I don't - there's no way he-

_"I love you, Hermione."_

_Hermione couldn't have replied verbally if her life had depended on it._

**Draco gazed over at Hermione longingly** as she stood in front of the mirror, fiddling with her jacket collar. He smiled, then went over and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her midsection and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Ready?" he whispered in her ear.

"As I'll ever be," she replied solemnly, and mussed up her hair a bit more. They both took a deep breath, and Draco pressed her wrists together, propelling her in front of him down the corridor and the staircase. They entered the parlour to observe the very restless Death Eaters sneering and drinking. Dolohov smeared a cigarette butt on the floor just as Draco pushed over to his aunt, who met him near the door to the kitchen, arms crossed and eyes stone cold. Managing his signature airs, he spoke before spoken to.

"You'll know the name well: Andromeda Tonks," he said, eliciting gasps from his parents and a mischievous cackle from his aunt.

"Bella, you wouldn't - our Andie!" Narcissa cried before she realised she was speaking aloud. Bellatrix turned to look at her in disgust.

"She hasn't been **our** Andie since she married that bastard muggle, Cissy! She **betrayed** us! She **left** us!" Bellatrix shouted.

"She-" Narcissa began, but her eyes strayed to her son, and she retreated into her husband's open, shaking arms.

"And at Hogwarts-" Bellatrix began, turning back to Draco.

"Longbottom and the Weasley chit. Lovegood, too, originally, but we all know how that's turned out. Weasels are in charge e'rywhere else as well."

The room was filled with a bittersweet silence, the blows of implicit humiliation and shame shadowing the supposed success of Draco's endeavour. There was a notable lack of struggle from Hermione; she was clenching her jaw but as far as the other Death Eaters could tell, Draco had been granted full authority over her. Bellatrix moved closer to the younger woman, cackling again as she interpreted Hermione's pretend submission.

"Looks like you didn't win this time, dirty little whore...how does it feel, you filthy Mudblood?"

Hermione's only response was a single word accompanied by the action of meeting Bellatrix' eyes.

"Checkmate."

Draco kept his face straight until they were down in the cellar, when he momentarily laughed at his victory over the others before pushing - and being pulled by - Hermione into one of the pillars near the very back of the cellar. A moment later the rest of the prisoners gravitated over to them, but they did not notice until Luna spoke.

"Oh, good! Are you officially together now?"

"Depends on what you mean by officially," Draco griped. Luna rolled her eyes, smiling at them brightly. Neither Ollivander nor Griphook had any idea what to make of the situation, having not been privy to the news for many months. Dean simply looked like he was restraining himself from making any of the inappropriate jokes about Slytherins he would have been making with Seamus, but did not seem particularly repulsed or aggravated, which was a good sign to Draco.

_Another Gryffindor down! Two, really, counting the little Scottish boyfriend who can't stop setting himself on fire...helps anyways, I guess._

"Confirmed, affirmative, known...permanent..." Luna continued.

Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a necklace.

"It would have been ideal to do this with a mirror, but I didn't want to risk them seeing this," he explained as he slipped his hands behind Hermione's neck and fastened the clasp. "You can see it later, I suppose."

"Pardon?" Hermione said, furrowing her eyebrows. Draco stuck his hand inside his jacket, and the others watched curiously. Hermione's eyes widened as he laid her bag in her palm, and she looked at him in disbelief.

"You'll be needing that." He then drew from another pocket one of the wands that Lord Voldemort had ordered crafted for his high-ranking Death Eaters. So many of them were now dead - most by her hand - that it was relatively safe for her to carry it.

"And this," he added as he handed it over to her. He retrieved a smaller necklace, and begrudgingly moved from Hermione to hang it around Luna's neck. She gave him a short hug.

"Good luck, Draco," she murmured.

"Likewise, Luna."

He rushed back to Hermione for another passionate kiss before walking towards the cellar door. As he reached the stairs, he heard the gasps from behind him as Dobby Apparated into the room. He took one last look at Hermione and jogged up the stairs to find that Voldemort had already been called.

"Now, my Lord?" Lucius questioned, glancing at his son out of the corner of his eye.

"What better time?" Voldemort growled, and Lucius rolled up his right sleeve and Summoned the few available Death Eaters not yet present. Having been to the Tonks house before, Narcissa was called upon to describe the premises, which she did with feigned alacrity and furtive glares at her sister. Draco was the last Death Eater to leave, staying behind for a moment to catch his breath, give his mother a kiss, and pray that Dobby had been able to transport their prisoners to safety, before Disapparating to the scene.


	21. Your Love is Mine For the Taking

_**[Warning: Profanity, sexual content, Hermione's feelings, breach of Draco's secrecy, Deamus hints, slightly OOC Voldemort]**_

_**[Note: The second song is the same from the previous chapter: "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra. The MLK quote at the end is for two reason: firstly, because it is relevant, and secondly, because this chapter was written on MLK Day 2012 (also the second Inauguration of US President Barack Obama.)]**_

**"Whispers In The Dark" by Skillet**

_Despite the lies that you're making / your love is mine for the taking /_  
_my love is / just waiting / to turn your tears to roses_

_Despite the lies that you're making / your love is mine for the taking /_  
_my love is / just waiting / to turn your tears to roses_

_I will be the one that's gonna hold you / I will be the one that you run to / _  
_My love is / a burning / consuming fire_

_No / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / I'll light the night with stars / hear the whispers in the dark / _  
_no / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / you know I'm never far / hear the whispers in the dark / whispers in the dark_

_You feel so lonely and ragged / you lay here broken and naked / _  
_my love is / just waiting / to clothe you in crimson roses_

_I will be the one that's gonna find you / I will be the one that's gonna guide you / _  
_my love is / a burning / consuming fire_

_No / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / I'll light the night with stars / hear the whispers in the dark / _  
_no / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / you know I'm never far / hear the whispers in the dark / whispers in the dark_

_No / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / I'll light the night with stars / hear the whispers in the dark / _  
_no / you'll never be alone / _  
_when darkness comes / you know I'm never far / hear the whispers in the dark / whispers in the dark_

_Whispers in the dark / whispers in the dark / whispers in the dark_

**After landing at Shell Cottage,** Hermione and Luna spent a few moments hugging each other and trying to catch their breaths, completely neglecting to look at their necklaces. A very pregnant Tonks excitedly followed Dean out of a room upstairs to come to greet the rest of the group.

"Where's Remus?" Luna asked softly.

"He's at home," Tonks said hesitantly, eliciting worried looks from the girls. Hermione soon realised what Tonks meant, and she gasped.

"He's not alone, is he?" she exclaimed.

"No, no, no! Almost the entire Order is over there. We're very well prepared for this, dear."

"Prepared for what?" Dean inquired.

"Ambush," Tonks replied.

"Ambush? But how-"

"The Tonks home was exposed to the Death Eaters."

"Then how-"

"Purposely," Luna interjected, and the room itself practically swung to look at her. She met Hermione's eyes.

"We knew you weren't going to talk, so I'm the one who told him."

Hermione was struck with confusion.

"How did you- you knew they were going to-"

"Kill you? He came to me for help," Luna interrupted, and Hermione drew in a sharp breath.

"You didn't know?" Tonks asked Hermione, who only shook her head in response.

"Not until Narcissa Malfoy came to say that everyone was getting sus- suspicious...about Draco's intentions..."

"They only started getting suspicious today?" Tonks exclaimed.

"Draco and Hermione had sex again-" Luna explained, and Hermione impulsively but gently slapped her on the arm then glared at the laughing Dean.

"Luna!"

"On Bellatrix' orders," Luna added to Tonks.

"I see..." Tonks replied, taking a moment of pause and ushering Hermione, Luna, Dean, and the others into the kitchen and starting a pot of tea. Dean and Luna helped Ollivander take a seat on the most comfortable-looking chair before sitting down themselves on either side of Hermione.

"He's a better man than he lets on, Malfoy," Tonks added as she set a cup down in front of Hermione.

"He- he is..." Hermione affirmed, smiling gently.

**After his successful landing at the Tonks home,** the first thing Draco heard was Voldemort's laugh. He grimaced, praying that their former prisoners had made it to one of the Order's other safehouses and that his pregnant cousin wasn't at home. If she were...she and that baby were dead. Not that it was entirely relevant, but it would be a good blow to the Black bloodline for his aunt Andromeda to be the sister with a grandchild. He wasn't sure his mother would be so lucky. Not that his child was going to be Pureblood anyway.

Then he heard Bellatrix' cackle, followed closely by his father's attempt at a laugh, and then a familiar voice vindictively saying his father's name, which he guessed originated from Andromeda. It sounded enough like his mother to be so: similar to Bellatrix', but much gentler.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Andie...at least Draco wasn't a rotten failure...like that filthy little girl of yours - what's her name again? Oh! Lupin now, isn't it?" Bellatrix finished sneering just as Draco entered the parlour. Both his ex-professor and his estranged aunt began to lunge for the woman, but were restrained by others in the Order.

"What, won't let anybody get hurt?" said Dolohov arrogantly. Draco coughed, partly on accident and partly in response. Most of the Death Eaters turned to look at him with their eyebrows raised, shocked that he was speaking, as they feared that he was secretly allied with the Order.

"Careful, there. Generalising these people has gotten more of us killed than I think we'd like," he said.

"You say that a little too proudly, Draco," Bellatrix jeered, walking towards him.

"Shouldn't I?" he replied in the same tone. "I'm the person who got her to talk, remember? And you all thought she'd never hurt a soul. Eight men dead, and **Draco Malfoy** gets-"

"That's enough, Draco!" Lucius grumbled fearfully.

"All I'm saying is that things, and people, aren't always what you expect, and Dumbledore's people have a tendency to be capable of more than we give them credit for, and it hurts us-"

"Draco, I think you should go back home now," Lucius said through gritted teeth.

"Well, then," Draco exclaimed sarcastically, but turned to leave, accidentally meeting Bill Weasley's eyes.

"And when we return, we must be sure to discuss whatever it is your filthy girlfriend's gotten into you," Voldemort sneered.

"She's not-" Draco began, pausing abruptly when he realised that he would be a bloody liar regardless of how he finished such a sentence. The slight nod of understanding he was given by Bill Weasley relaxed him a bit, and he advanced towards the door.

"Actually, Draco," Voldemort continued, wagging one of his deathly pale fingers after Draco. "There must be rooms upstairs. Leave the fighting to the adults, and maybe I'll consider giving you a reward for finding Potter or one of his freaky little friends."

The Weasley parents became struck with fear, and Draco instantly understood that someone was indeed being hidden upstairs. He wanted nothing more than to go home to his mother, but he- he had a duty to fulfil. He whirled himself back around and stepped towards the line of Order members that had assembled. He went directly to the staircase, blocked when Arthur Weasley moved to stand in his way. He turned up his head and looked the taller, larger man in the eye, hoping to convey some semblance of his ulterior purpose, but his aunt had Imperiused Arthur before Draco had much chance. He took a sharp breath and continued up the stairs, trying to ignore the immediate shouting and spellcasting that ensued as he did.

He found more rooms than he had expected, and most of them were, in fact, empty. He spent an extra moment in his cousins' room, marvelling at the wedding photos, which he'd never seen. She was more beautiful than he had remembered - of course, his last memory of her was when she was at most eight years old - and they were both so...happy. He gave himself a moment to bite his lip and hope that he would get the chance to have that happiness.

The last door on the left was the only locked door, which he rolled his eyes as he opened. It was almost surprising that anyone expecting an attack from Voldemort would honestly think that locking the door would be much help.  
Draco didn't need to step into the room to see the pair of best friends huddled in the far corner, but he entered the room anyway, shutting the door behind him.

"Are you actually stupid enough to still be in this fucking house? You knew He was coming; you should have left!" he chided.

"Go fuck your- wait, how do you know we knew He was coming?" Ron retorted, shoving himself up from his spot on the floor and keeping a tight grip on his wand. Draco forced a laugh.

"What, did you think a little birdy just so happened to be flying over Malfoy Manor and overheard a plan being made even before any of the Death Eaters knew what the fuck type of place they might be looking for, and decided 'oh, I'd better go chirp this to Professor McGonagall!', Weaselbee? I didn't think even you were that dense!"

"The bloody hell you saying?"

Draco dramatically rolled his eyes, sighing.

"Who do you think told your Order that the safehouse was compromised? Who do you think was the very first fucking Death Eater to know anything about this?"

"Taking credit for the attack, then?"

"Taking credit for our knowing beforehand," Harry said softly, standing beside Ron but looking with gentle eyes at Draco.

"You do care about her, don't you? You love her."

"None of your business, Potter!" Draco sneered. Ron's jaw dropped, but Harry's expression remained practically emotionless.

"Now keep quiet," he growled, turned, and left the room, slamming the door shut. When he reached the top of the stairs he leaned over the railing, grimacing at the wounded people lying on the floor. His aunt was the first to realise he had returned.

"Well, Draco?"

"Upstairs is clear," he said confidently. The Weasleys tried to hide their relief, and McGonagall cracked a small sly grin towards him. Wand still pointed at Bill Weasley, with whom he was fighting, Voldemort grumbled, "This isn't over."

He dropped his wand hand, sliding the weapon into his cloak pocket.

"How about we leave you Malfoys for a moment?" he said coldly. "You, Lucius, can have a little family reunion with your filthy sister-in-law while Draco explains - very, very clearly to Mr and Mrs Weasley - just what he has done with their precious Mudblood half-daughter!"  
The room collectively gasped, and the Weasley parents' faces turned even colder, as the rest of the Death Eaters Disapparated, leaving Draco and his confused and trembling father.

**"A phial?" Luna murmured,** holding the necklace in her hand, glancing at Hermione.

"Why would he give you a phial?" said Dean. Hermione's eyes bulged after a moment, and she began searching frantically through her bag, causing Luna, Dean, and Tonks to look at her with even more confusion. They heard stirring upstairs, and Tonks ran off to check on Ollivander and Griphook.

"See if there's a label," Hermione said, and Luna turned her gaze back to the tiny bottle.

"Aha!" Hermione gripped the other phial in her fingers, pulling it from the bag and showing it to Dean as Luna examined the other.

"See?"

"I can't entirely tell, but it looks like it says 'P, slash, C-I-S-S," Luna said, pronouncing each character separately."

Hermione realised, "Polyjuice."

"Come again?" inquired Dean.

"They're Polyjuice Potion. For Bellatrix and Narcissa. This one says P-BELL, see?"

Hermione handed her phial to Luna, who cross-examined the two.

"Looks like the same handwriting, too. Funny, it looks like- it looks like Snape's penmanship, honestly."

"Maybe it is," Dean offered, and both Hermione and Luna looked to him curiously.

"Snape was the - other - rat, right? The other traitor to You-Know-Who. We knew that already. And he loves Malfoy. It makes sense that Snape would help him, doesn't it? And if Malfoy had an idea how to help us...then I'm sure he'd oblige."

"How does this help us, though?" Luna asked, but Hermione had begun tuning them both out, running the fingers of her left hand over the locket Draco had given her earlier and becoming lost in thought. Her right hand drifted to her pocket, eventually touching the wand.

"Gringotts," she mumbled, and her companions turned back to her. "Bellatrix thought we stole something from her vault. If I am capable of fighting as her equal-"

"You're capable of believably pretending to be her-" said Luna.

"And capable of getting into her vault-" said Dean.

"To get whatever she's told us we need-" said Hermione.

"With me acting as Draco's mother-" added Luna.

"Damn, Malfoy's smarter than I thought," concluded Dean. Hermione and Luna looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

**Everything started to become a blur:** trying to explain the situation to the Order and to his father, being cursed at, spat at, scoffed at-

"You should have told me, Draco," Lucius grumbled, anxiety seeping through his feigned hate.

"And what merit would that have given me, Father?"

"At the very least, I could have ensured that my wife isn't going to die over this, Draco. Did you ever think about that? Ever think you'd be dragging us into this? You know, you damn fucking bloody well know, the first suspect, maybe the only suspect, is going to be you, Draco. Do you not think that's dangerous for your mother and I? Do you think He just excuses our relation when things like this come up? Questions of your loyalty? No, Draco, He does not. Your loyalty - or rather, lack thereof - is exactly what he needs to make me pay for mine."

"What is this lack of loyalty you speak of?" Draco shouted. "You're the one who sold your son's soul for him! You trapped me in this position!"

"I had no choice, Draco-"

"Bullshit! That's complete and utter bullshit! If seventeen-year-olds can face Him, can fight Him, can lie straight to His face, so can a grown man with too much to lose! The Weasley girl spent a year possessed by Him when she was eleven!" Draco screamed. "Not to mention, that was by your hand!"

"Thank you so much for bringing that back up in front of the Weasley family, Draco," Lucius spat.

"You're very welcome, Father," Draco returned.

"You're a traitor, you know, a blood traitor!" Lucius added, glancing at his sister-in-law. She noticed his gaze and folded her arms.

"Proudly so," Draco scoffed, regaining a semblance of pride. Lucius took a sharp, shocked breath.

"And your mother-"

"Just told me not to get caught."

"And how do you expect to-"

"You're the only other Death Eater who knows. He finds out, I know who's to blame...who's to pay."

Lucius gritted his teeth.

"What? I'm all grown up, Daddy, my own man, and I'm going to continue to make my own choices, whether you like that or not, and to treat you like I would any other man. I might be a traitor, but I'm not running from it. Maybe that's foolish, maybe not, but you can't stop me."

**Hermione groaned when she saw the clock.** It was past one in the morning, and she hadn't been able to fall asleep yet...she heard what seemed to be a humming noise coming from the room next to her and groaned again. Dean was probably still listening to the bloody radio, trying to figure how to get to Potterwatch, trying to make sure Seamus was okay. Not that he'd slept much in the past few months anyway with it on his mind - but now that he had a chance to maybe even hear Seamus' voice, well, Hermione really didn't doubt he'd be trying to.

However, when she grabbed Rodolphus' wand, sat up, and amplified the noise, she heard a song which sounded vaguely familiar. A love song, definitely, which she had heard years ago on one of her parents' anniversaries, but she remembered it from more recently. She tried to place it, and was largely unsuccessful. After a few moments, though, she thought again of Draco - and simultaneously gasped and collapsed back into her bed as memories flooded her brain at record force.

**...yes, you're lovely, with your smile so warm**  
**and your cheeks so soft.**  
**There is nothing for me but to love you,**  
**and the way you look tonight...**

_It was a desperate kind of kiss, the kind that literally says _'I need you.'_ It almost baffled her, but in a pleasing way, because it was a different kind of need than usual. What really baffled her was that while she was making a barely successful attempt at inching out of the very sexy Christmas outfit she'd borrowed from Ginny, Draco seemed more intent on kissing her. Kissing her desperately. Passionately. Mind-blowingly. Spectacularly. There were no words that could describe exactly how spectacular; even her extraordinary vocabulary did not include a word that alluded to how amazing and how intoxicating it felt to be with Draco at that moment._

_She had a second thought, that just maybe they had come too far, that they were together to have sex and she shouldn't want him just as badly if his cock **wasn't** inside of her - but she disregarded it. She wanted this. This connection. This actual, real, connection. It wasn't quite sexual, but just maybe that didn't even matter any more. She lo- _

_No she didn't. That word- that couldn't be it. That was **not** the word that described how she felt. There had to be something else. Maybe she was drunk. That was it, she decided, she was drunk. That's why she was feeling this way. __That was why she couldn't think of a word to describe what she was feeling. That was why._

_After a few more minutes of limited contact with the dress pants containing his erection, Hermione couldn't stand it. Even just the sensation of his skin against hers, combined with that of his lips and tongue pleasuring her, was practically orgasmic, and she needed it. Needed **him**. Not quickly enough, Draco's clothes came off and his mouth drifted down Hermione's skin, contorting into a smile as she screamed, squirmed, and moaned beneath him._

* * *

**"A man not willing to die for something is not fit to live." -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.**


	22. Meet Me in the Sunshine

**"Sunshine" by Vertical Horizon**

_Sometimes I can't get enough / ooh, of you / _  
_this friendly game keeps getting rough / think I'm breaking through /_  
_I cannot hide this well / this well as I should / _  
_there's always something left to tell / tell me / is it good_

_I see you / do you see me too? / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine /_  
_come on through / I will find you / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine_

_I guess you chose a different road / I am not aware / _  
_I got the one that's been closed / shut down for repair /_  
_I hold a highway in my head / ruling like a king / _  
_I drive away the things I've said / and I've said everything_

_I see you / do you see me too? / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine /_  
_come on through / I will find you / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine / _  
_meet me in the sunshine / meet me in the / sunshine_

_There's something better in this heat / getting it on /_  
_I feel the warmth / I feel the greed / and I fear the fall / _  
_I hold this window wide enough / to keep the whole world / _  
_I want to spit out all this stuff / and keep the girl_

_I see you / do you see me too? / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine /_  
_come on through / I will find you / close your eyes / and meet me in the sunshine / _  
_meet me in the sunshine / meet me in the sunshine_

**"How do I look?"** Hermione nervously inquired, twirling and marvelling at the reflection looking back at her from the mirror. Curly black locks framed a pale and beautiful face worn and torn by years of insanity, and sturdy shoulders led into arms that were skinny but strong.

"Like an evil, crazy bitch," Dean replied with a hint of sarcasm.

"Perfect."

"And me?" Luna asked.

"More maternal and less evil and crazy...but still evil and crazy," Dean said, buttoning the last button of her long black dress.

"Spectacular," Luna smiled at him.

"Harry and Ron done arguing yet?" Hermione pressed, starting to twiddle her thumbs thoughtlessly. Luna reached out and grabbed for her hand as Dean sighed.

"Unfortunately, no."

Hermione groaned and started for the door, but was stopped by Luna.

"Leave Ron to me."

Not keen on letting Luna be alone with Ron and Harry while they were angry with each other, Hermione wanted to follow after her, but she bit her lip and held herself back. Dean was busy studying the black dress Hermione had on. Fleur's mother had found it at some fancy shoppe in Wizarding Paris, and it would have fit perfectly in Bellatrix Lestrange's wardrobe. Due to the Delacour family, the Order really had started to expand; there was an entire chapter in France. Many of its members had been at Bill and Fleur's wedding, and seemed both very kind and very willing to help in whatever way they could. The Order had moved out of all but their main British safehouse - Shell Cottage - and into the homes of their French allies. Everywhere else was too dangerous. Tonks and her family had insisted upon staying in their home, and they hadn't yet been swayed to leave, but the Order was no longer using it.

"So...you and Malfoy are...officially..." Dean began once Luna left the room.

"His name is Draco, Dean, and yes, we are officially together now, regardless of anyone else's opinion on the matter," Hermione conceded tersely.

"I was just asking, as a friend. I trust your judgement, Hermione. Besides, it's your life, not mine. I don't have the right to tell you what's right or wrong for you. I get enough prejudice from my family, anyway. You know, about being with Seamus. 'But he's a man! But he's a wizard! But he has a proclivity to set everything on fire!' But you know what? I just remind them all that my mum taught me how to cook just fine and I love him and that's that. I just- just wanted to let you know that I'm not someone you have to tell that to. You don't have to defend your choices to me. I've got your back."

Hermione smiled uncontrollably, starting to laugh when she remembered that at the moment she perfectly resembled Bellatrix Lestrange. After a few moments, she grabbed her bag and the Death Eater wand and took a deep breath.

"Ready?" she said, a pleasant smile remaining on her face.

"Let's go get 'em."

**Upon returning to the Manor,** Draco was promptly shoved into his bedroom by his irate father. He fell painfully to the floor, and by the time he jumped back to his feet the door had been locked behind him. The room was still soundproofed, so there was no point in screaming, and he frustratedly collapsed on his still unmade bed.

_Well, this isn't going to end well... _

It was more than a day before the door opened again, and then, it was his mother, frantic and covered in beads of cold sweat, who woke him abruptly as she burst through the door and rushed over to him. She gripped him fiercely, pinning him down to his bed, and for the first time in a long time he returned her forcefulness. Tears quickly soaked his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" he murmured. "Have they hurt you?"

"No," she choked, "not- not y- yet. B- but there is talk- great talk of hurting at- at least y- you. Y- your father is trying, Draco, but the- the Dark Lord is not believing him..."

Draco's eyes widened with fear. He pushed her weight off of him and stood up, clenching her forearms between his frigid fingers.

"What is he trying? Mother, what is he trying? What is Father telling them?"

"H- he has told them you were Im- Imperiused, Draco."

"But by whom? Herm- Granger never-"

"Hermione never had a wand...and it's practically impossible to perform an Unforgivable Curse...without one."

Draco's foot began to tap rapidly against the hardwood floor, and his heart raced. Within seconds his door was again shoved open; he reached for his wand to find that they had been joined by his father, who swaggered into the room with a face marked with fear and wrapped his arm around his wife's waist.

"Draco..." Lucius began softly. Draco cleared his throat before grimly replying, "Yes, Father?"

"You're leaving. Severus is coming and you're going to leave with him," Lucius said sternly.

"What? No! I can't-"

"Yes, Draco, you can. It- it's not safe for you here any more."

"But I can't-"

"Draco-"

"I can't just leave you here!"

Narcissa's cold hand wrung her son's. He squeezed it and pulled her closer.

"If it isn't safe for me, it surely isn't safe for you two, either!"

"We can handle this, Draco," Lucius said bluntly. "You, go...go to McGonagall, go to Andromeda...they'll keep you safe. They'll help you."

"Go...find Hermione, Draco," Narcissa added just as another figure came through the doorway. Clothed fully in black, the man's identity was clear to Draco before he said so much as a word.

"Thank you, Severus," Lucius murmured shakily, and received a nod in response.

"I'll send word after we have reached whichever safehouse Minerva deems fit," Severus said brusquely. Draco opened his mouth to speak, but found that he choked on his words. He flung himself back into his mother's arms, and was received with enthusiasm. His father's icy hand rested on his upper back for a short, somewhat consolatory moment.

**"I knew it!" Ron contested angrily.** "I knew you were lying!"

"Ron, please," Hermione pled. "You don't know Draco, he's a good person-"

"Good person, my rotten arse! Besides, there are plenty of good people, and you're not fucking all o' them, are you? Or maybe you are! I swear, I don't know you any more!"

Keeping her head was more difficult than she had expected. Hermione could barely bring herself to respond with understanding to Ron's disparaging comments.

"Okay, I understand that the Malfoy thing is a pretty big deal, but I think we might want to focus on the fact that we just robbed bloody Gringotts!" Harry exclaimed, drawing everyone's attention to him.

"I agree, Harry," Luna added, calming Ron slightly.

"As do I," said Dean. Ron shoved an impressive sigh out of his chest and dramatically lay back onto the couch. He was joined in his seat by the tender Luna, who reassuringly rested her small hand upon his knee in an attempt to entice him into remaining calm. Smirks crept across the faces of the others until the very moment there was a loud knock on the door to Harry's room. He rushed to open it and found a grinning Tonks standing directly in front of the doorway.

"Hermione in here?" she asked Harry, who turned to Hermione with a confused expression and signaled her to come over.

"What is it?" Hermione nervously inquired as Harry returned to the rest of the group. Tonks' smile widened.

"You'll never guess who's downstairs," said Tonks in a cheerful whisper, and Hermione gasped, with an unmistakably relieved smile. She skirted past Tonks and rushed down the stairs, taking barely a second to confirm that they were alone before flinging herself into Draco's arms.

"What happened?" she pressed him almost immediately. "Have they found out? Have they hurt you? Are you all right? Draco-"

He quickly cut her off with a forceful, impassioned kiss which sent shivers down her spine. He broke it for a matter of a few short seconds.

"Questions later," he muttered, and with a gentle nod from her as response, continued to kiss her intensely.


	23. Underneath the Skin You Live In

**"Suddenly" by Creed**

_A nature to nurture / an instinct to sin / what's underneath / the skin you live in /_  
_you trade your unlimited / your precious creation / you will submit / you will give in_

_Suddenly I have no / strength at all / so suddenly hit / with all I've lost /_  
_suddenly my world / is falling apart / so suddenly / so suddenly / suddenly_

_You say you're a victim / but that's just a symptom / you're so very clear / you volunteered /_  
_why are you fighting / just stop your denying / own up to the sin / you bury within_

_Suddenly I have no / strength at all / so suddenly hit / with all I've lost /_  
_suddenly my world / is falling apart / so suddenly / so suddenly / suddenly_

_I have no strength at all / I've been hit with a loss / so suddenly my world / falls apart /_  
_I have no strength at all / I've been hit with a loss / suddenly my world / falls apart /_  
_my world / falls apart / my world_

_Suddenly I have no / strength at all / so suddenly hit / with all I've lost /_  
_suddenly my world / is falling apart / so suddenly / so suddenly /_  
_suddenly I have no / strength at all / so suddenly hit / so suddenly hit /_  
_suddenly my world / falls apart / so suddenly / so suddenly / suddenly_

_Suddenly my world / falls apart / my world / falls apart / my world_

**"Are you really sure** you want to know?" Draco groaned, slowly taking another sip of his tea.

"Yes, Draco. Besides, yesterday you said 'questions later'. It's later," Hermione insisted frustratedly. Draco sighed, but leaned back in his chair and began explaining the events of the previous week, from Draco's decision to release the Manor's prisoners to his banishment from his home and his ultimate convergence with the Order. He detailed the multitude of plans he had manufactured, and the manners in which various members of the Order addressed him upon his arrival: the softening tension from the Weasley parents, the reticent but curious stares and whispers from Fred and George, the immediate embrace from Professor McGonagall tinged with victory and relief. He choked on the memory of his parents' tight grips on one another as he was escorted out of his bedroom and off to Paris.

"I wish I could tell you that they'll be all right..." Hermione murmured sadly.

"But they won't be," Draco said, his palms beginning to sweat. He wiped his hands on the thighs of his trousers and sat up straighter in his seat.

"You don't know that either," Hermione told him, intertwining her fingers within those on the bony hand remaining on Draco's thigh.

"What really are the chances, though? If You-Know-Who is trying to find me-"

"Draco-"

"I'd rather be found and fight Him myself than have my parents tortured to death protecting me!"

"I understand that, but they made the choice to protect you, knowing the dangers that choice held for them. It was an act of courage and you should be proud of them. Besides, they've still got the chance for mercy, no?"

"Not with Him, not unless they turn me in. And they don't even know where I am. They've nothing to tell Him. Nothing at all."

At Hermione's gentle squeeze of his hand, Draco's scowl softened into a smile for a short moment, and he leaned over to kiss her, only to be interrupted by a flood of people into the kitchen. He bit his lip so as not to evince his displeasure and returned to a completely upright position.

**Hermione lay awake in bed**, Draco's arm wrapped reassuringly around her torso. Her mind raced violently, tossing around what would have been her nightmares, had she been asleep. She became aware of a conversation spoken in whispers happening down the hall, and stiffened, focusing her attention on the gravelly voice beseeching Bill to call an emergency meeting of the Order.

"I know they haven't entirely diverged, but think of Draco!"

"Minerva specifically stated that if we do not have their word-"

"Is there really no other way?"

"None other than to disobey our rightful leader!"

"Maybe they will be swayed and later pronounce a change of loyalty. Think, they betrayed Him to free their son; can that not be divergence enough?"

"Not according to-"

"If they are not rescued, they will die," Severus interrupted, his voice cracking on his last word, and it sounded as though tears had built up behind his eyelids. Bill took a strong, deep breath.

"And do you swear - on your life, Headmaster, your own wellbeing - that that have deferred from the ways of the Dark Lord and will, if necessary, fight for the Light?" Bill's voice trembled slightly as he recited said oath.

"I do," replied Severus, and Bill drew in another breath.

"Very well," he sighed, and Hermione could hear the scrape of a quill against parchment as well as the beating of her heart. Moments later the demanding growl of Professor McGonagall echoed down the corridor. Bill shushed her and her voice fell to a whisper more soft than either man's, and Hermione could discern nothing until her door was flung open. Fleur stood beneath the doorframe, urging both Hermione and Draco to rouse themselves. Hermione shook Draco's shoulder till he woke, and they spent a short moment dressing before joining a larger group downstairs.

McGonagall was speaking to the group, and Hermione was unsettled by the drift of the woman's eyes over to Draco. They showed more pity than Hermione cared to see. Luna gestured to Draco, and he pulled Hermione over to an empty chair next to her. Ron scowled, because he sat at Luna's other side, covertly resting his hand on hers. Hermione scowled back and he turned away. Luna gently rubbed his back and shrugged towards Hermione apologetically. Hermione rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the front of the room.

**Draco paced frantically** from one end of the kitchen to the other. The kitchen at the Burrow was far smaller than he was used to, and it didn't take very long, so after a few moments he began walking around the dining table rather than beside.

"Sit down, Draco. Have some tea," Molly said sweetly.

"How am I supposed to sit and have tea at a time like this?!" Draco exclaimed, throwing his arms up forcefully.

"You sit down, in one of these lovely chairs here. You take deep breaths to help yourself relax, and let your breathing slow. The kettle finishes and you wait while I grab a teacup from the cupboard and fill it with tea. I hand it to you, you blow on it a little, bring the cup to your lips, and take a small sip, then set it down for a couple moments. You do that last step over and over again until the cup is drained, and then you ask me for some more tea. And when your parents arrive I'll go into the living room and see what needs doing. That's how," Molly replied with hints of sarcasm and superiority. Draco - and he could tell this was to her surprise - began to follow her instructions. He reminded himself that she was a mother to Hermione; it gave him a reason to trust her.

The clock showed that nearly an hour had passed since Draco's arrival when he heard the front door open.

"Molly dear!" Andromeda called, and Molly rushed out of the room, ordering Draco to stay calm. His heartbeat sped up and he came close to dropping his teacup, but he clenched his teeth and stayed in place. He was momentarily greeted with an enthusiastic collective embrace by both Luna and Hermione, and a kiss from the latter. Disjointed exclamations filled the adjoining room, and to Hermione's dismay Draco plowed a path through the door which connected the two rooms. He was taken aback by the sight of his father, bent over the Weasleys' couch, and took a sharp breath. Molly and Andromeda worked around him, administering potions and applying bandages to his mother, who lay, writhing, on the couch.

"Mother," Draco whimpered, and rushed over to his parents. Tears welled up behind his eyelids as he grasped his mother's right hand as it reached for him and knelt by the side of the couch. His father slid over to make room for him. As Draco turned to look at Lucius' deathly pale face he beheld the glossy grey eyes which were holding back a flood of emotion and the single tear streaking the man's right cheek. Draco momentarily leaned into his father's bony shoulder, surprised to find that Lucius responded by draping his left arm around Draco's back and pulling him closer. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a few of the adults holding back nervous laughter, obviously shocked to see the Malfoys treating each other with affection. Draco could not blame them; even considering the circumstances, he was rather shocked himself.

**Hermione and Luna simultaneously reached** for each other's hands, and gripped each other tightly as they watched the distraught Draco push his way over to the couch where his mother lay. Hermione could barely see over the back of the couch, but she could see enough for her stomach to turn, if only because Narcissa had been humanised in her eyes. She had lost a great deal of blood already, and seemed to be fighting to remain conscious. Hermione was almost surprised to feel tears form within her eyes, and she blinked them away as well as she was able. Luna reached over and gently wiped a tear which had escaped and begun to stream down Hermione's face, but just as she pulled Hermione into a hug, Narcissa muttered her name.

"Bring Hermione," Narcissa said softly but with great effort. Lucius gently shushed her, stroking a cut on her cheek with his thumb, his palm cupped beneath her neck. Hermione's head shot up and Luna released her; Hermione cautiously toed across the room as Molly began ushering others into the kitchen, leaving only Hermione and the Malfoy family. As Hermione rounded the corner of the couch, she and Draco unintentionally made eye contact, eliciting light blushes upon both of their faces. Lucius rolled his eyes, but Narcissa managed a gentle smile, letting go of her husband's perspiring hand to take Hermione's. Barely able to speak, she retained her grin as she brought Hermione's hand to her lips and laid a light kiss on its frigid knuckles.

**The voices grew louder as Draco** **progressed** down the spiral staircase.

"Severus, I specifically told you not to take them in unless we had his word!" Minerva exclaimed.

"It was a judgement call, Minerva. I wasn't about to let her die in their hands-" Severus plead coldly.

"You might be our spy, but you can't just have the Order run around saving all your friends!"

"They are good people. Frightened, but good. Surely you believe that!" Bill added.

"Narcissa I am not concerned about. It's Lucius' word I don't trust. He has lied far too many times to deserve blind faith."

"That may be so, but that does not mean he will not follow suit. He cares more for his family than for his name, I promise you," Severus said.

"We'll see about that," Minerva grumbled.

Draco's breath became sharper.

_And to think I only came downstairs for a cup of tea..._

He squinted as the moonlight streaming through the large window in the living room flooded into his eyes, and turned back. He crept up the staircase and into Ron's bedroom. Molly had decided that it would be best for he, Ron, and Harry to share a room while they were all at the Burrow. As Draco had never stayed over at the Weasleys before, he defaulted to sleeping on a mattress on the floor, which he had shoved into the corner. Less than a night, and he knew that Harry talked in his sleep, and Ron was one of the heaviest sleepers on earth.

Draco jumped slightly as the door clicked shut, and he heard a grunt from the other end of the room.

"Potter?" he whispered, and Harry groaned.

"We discussed this. You can call me Harry now."

"Sorry, force of habit. It has been nearly seven years, you know," Draco added with a tinge of sarcasm.

"I am aware of that, actually, thank you," Harry replied using the same tone.

"You all right? Need to talk?" he continued as Draco started to stumble back towards his corner. He chuckled but then drew his wand and lit it.

"Fine, thanks," Draco said awkwardly as he crawled under the sheets.

"Yeah," Harry mumbled.

"Actually..." Draco began worriedly a few moments later, pushing himself up and resting his back against the wall, and Harry sat up in bed to show that he was listening.


	24. Wrapped Up In Things I Cannot Win

_**[Warning: angry!Ron (surprise, surprise), angry!Hermione, proud!Draco, sensitive!Draco, slightly fluffy romantic moments]**_

**"Cold" by Crossfade**

_Looking back at me I see / that I never really got it right / I never stopped to think of you / I'm always wrapped up in / things I cannot win / you are the antidote that gets me by / something strong / like a drug that gets me / high_

_What I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so cold / what I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so_

_cold to you / I'm sorry / about all the lies / maybe in a different light / you could see me stand on my own again / 'cause now I can see / you were the antidote that got me by / something strong / like a drug that got me / high_

_What I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so cold / what I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so cold, cold, cold / I never meant to be so cold / cold_

_I never really / wanted you to see / the screwed up side of me / that I keep / locked inside of me so deep / it always seems to get to me / I never really wanted you to go / so many things / you should have known / I guess for me there's just no hope / I never meant to be so cold_

_What I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so cold / what I really meant to say / is I'm sorry for the way I am / I never meant to be so cold / never meant to be so cold_

**"Well?" Draco inquired anxiously,** his eyes fixed on the mirror and his lips pursed as he fumbled to straighten a tie that wasn't there. As he had not prepared for his prompt dismissal from home, there was now a considerable dearth of wardrobe that was going to take some getting used to. Almost surprisingly, of all the Weasley brothers - Harry included - Ron's clothing seemed to fit Draco best, but of course on their own accord the two dressed very differently. Not to mention that Ron was certainly less than pleased with the arrangement.

"You look dashing," Molly said almost teasingly. Draco had half a mind to glare at her, but was careful not to do so. Perhaps because she had raised so many sons, Molly seemed to be able to perceive Draco's emotions exactly. She could tell when he became even the littlest bit more anxious and when his heart fluttered. She seemed to understand better than nearly all the rest of her family. Harry, Bill - and Fleur, though to a lesser extent - were the exception. He was originally taken aback by Harry's apparent acceptance of him, but after their conversation the night before, he understood that Harry had seen Draco's divergence from his father's reputation and appreciated the multiple occasions on which Draco had protected him. Draco turned to Hermione, eyebrows raised. She sat cross-legged on the bed, distractedly combing her fingers through her hair. She scoffed very gently.

"And what do you think I'm going to say?" she jested sarcastically. Draco rolled his eyes, chuckling.

"Well, I'll go see what other clothing I can find for you, dear," Molly said to him, winking as she shut the door behind her.

"How strict are they?" Draco asked Hermione once he was sure Molly was out of earshot.

"What do you mean?"

"They wouldn't hear of us sharing a bed, yet leave us alone regardless?"

"Firstly, spending time with Ron and Harry is good for all three of you. Secondly, everyone is awake at this moment. Less chance we'd do something we'd actually get in trouble for. Thirdly, they've taught them all birth control spells, but not even Bill and Fleur slept in the same bed here until they were married."

Draco stood for a moment, crossing his arms and considering her response.

"Wait, how do you know they taught them all the spells?"

Hermione gave him a disapproving look.

"Just wondering," he contested.

"No you weren't," she contradicted, and he saw in her eyes that she had indeed discerned the jealousy in his voice. Smiling quietly to herself, Hermione scooted herself off the bed. She stepped gingerly over to where Draco stood, facing him as she tenderly placed her hands on his sides, and kissed him softly.

**"No way! No, no, no, not happening! Absolutely not!" Ron screamed.**

"Ronald, this is not your choice," Molly admonished.

"Well, that's not fair!"

"Life isn't fair," Harry mumbled, careful not to look at Ron, though he received a glare anyway.

"We're trying to be fair to our newer recruits as well," Molly said.

"Recruits?" Ron scoffed. "What bullshit!"

"Ronald!" his mother yelled harshly, but he only rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair.

"Why should we be fair to them if that isn't what they've done?"

"I mean, considering all the times Draco's saved our lives, Ron-" Harry replied.

"Oh, so **you** call him Draco, now, too?"

"If we continue to call all of them Malfoy, we'll never know who we're talking about!"

"Does it matter? They're one in the same to me!"

"As if we didn't know that already," Hermione sneered, and they glared at each other caustically.

"Honestly, both of you," Minerva said, an order implicit in her words. There was a short tense silence before the door at the back of the room opened. Arthur held the door open for the three Malfoys as they stepped in and took their seats.

"Welcome," Minerva said proudly. Lucius nodded respectfully, Narcissa grinned, with a small wave at the professor, and Draco smiled at them. Ron scowled loudly, and Hermione braced herself.

"Perhaps this is a discussion best had privately," Minerva griped, and Ron scoffed. "Severus, Andromeda, and the Malfoys shall stay here with me-"

"Oh, poor Hermione doesn't get to stay? Or is she already being acknowledged as one of the Order's most desperate adversaries?" Ron jeered. Hermione pushed herself up from the table with so much force that her chair fell backwards along with a few glasses on the table itself. Her grip on her wand was tight, and Remus at her right prepared to grab it from her.

"I'm not going to put up with you!" she shrieked, and she marched violently out of the room.

**"Ron!" Luna cried softly,** looking at him closely in both fear and disgust. Draco, still at the back of the room, saw his parents' expressions change drastically, which worried him for a moment, but he felt even his father could be trusted to remain composed.

No one in the room seemed prepared to respond, with the possible exception of Remus, who leaned over to Tonks, seemingly questioning whether he should go after her. Draco bit his lip and stood up slowly. He walked calmly to where Hermione had been sitting, the position directly across from Luna, and tenderly picked up her chair and slid it back into place. He laid his hands on the table and took a deep breath before looking towards Ron, who looked at him curiously but made it clear that he did not take Draco seriously.

"Look," Draco began, "I know that you don't want me here, let alone my parents. I understand that. I know what I've done to you, and most of those things are damn good reasons to hate me. I get that, and I'm not going to expect you to get over it. But you need to get over Hermione's place in this. She's been your best friend for a long time, and everyone in the room can attest that she is absolutely the most intelligent, and one of the most talented, most compassionate, most dedicated people, that any one of us will ever meet. The fact that I love her shouldn't factor into that one bit. I don't need your respect, and I understand your reticence to grant me any, but I'm not going to sit here and watch you disrespect Hermione."

Ron was shocked to the point of speechlessness as he watched Draco leave the room, his expression suddenly sombre and his face turned to the floor.

**Hermione sat bawling** for a matter of minutes, her head tucked in between her knees. She heard forceful footsteps pass the door, and raised her head. The door opened slowly and Draco stepped inside, closing it gently behind himself. His face was contorted with concern, and while her immediate reaction was to say she wanted to be alone, she said nothing as he walked around the bed and sat down next to her.

"And in the corner, too?" he asked softly and tenderly.

"I can't deal with this any more. With him. With having to justify every little thing I do and say to him just because..."

"Of me."

"Draco, it's not you, not really. He's just as stubborn without you here," Hermione murmured, tucking her head into his shoulder. Draco pushed her off momentarily so that he could move his arm enough to wrap it around her, and she leaned back onto him and scooted closer.

"Besides, I don't want you to go."

They sat for a moment of pure, gentle silence before she spoke again.

"The thing is, I still don't want to lose him, and I just- don't really know what to do-"

"You don't need to, Hermione. You've convinced yourself that you always have to have the right answer, but really, that's the only thing you've been wrong about to date," he told her.

She smiled very gently, then shook her head.

"No. Not the only thing," she said, and he looked down at her with confusion.

**"I was wrong about you."**


	25. Redemption Has Stories to Tell

**"Dare You To Move" by Switchfoot**

_Welcome to the planet / welcome to existence /_  
_everyone's here / everyone's here / everybody's watching you now /_  
_everybody waits for you now / what happens next / what happens next_

_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor /_  
_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / like today never happened / today never happened before_

_Welcome to the fallout / welcome to resistance / the tension is here / tension is here /_  
_between who you are / and who you could be / between how it is / and how it should be_

_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor /_  
_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / like today never happened / today never happened before_

_Maybe redemption has stories to tell / maybe forgiveness is right where you fell /_  
_where can you run to escape from yourself / where you gonna go / where you gonna go / salvation is here_

_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor /_  
_I dare you to move / I dare you to move / like today never happened / today never happened /_  
_today never happened before_

**"Severus," Minerva's voice said,** still shaking slightly ten minutes after she had ushered most of the Order out of the room, "you were...at the Malfoy Manor...when you decided to go to Shell Cottage and compel Bill to organise our forces, yes?"

Draco glanced to his left, watching the professor as he thought of how to answer. Severus began with a simple affirmation, then continued by detailing the event, starting with his arrival to the Manor. Draco's attention piqued, not having been aware of what had been happening then; Lucius had called Severus in hopes of getting help from the Order.

"Why did you think to-"

"It was the only chance we had, Professor. I know that we had no real connection, but I- I had no other choice," Lucius choked and stumbled on his words. Draco grew paler, and Hermione reached over to hold him.

"A little less than a day after Draco's departure, they decided it would be wise to...question me," Narcissa said.

"For good reason, they thought Narcissa was more likely to have information about Draco - his whereabouts, alliance, anything..." Lucius clarified.

"I see..." said Minerva.

"I- I shouldn't have waited that long...I should have seen it coming," Lucius lamented.

"Why do you think that?"

"I- I knew that the others would assume Draco had been involved."

"But your immediate reaction was to try to convince You-Know-Who...that he had not been," Minerva reiterated.

"Yes."

Draco saw that his father was becoming more tense, as though worrying what the others in the room were going to think of him, regardless of the fact that there was barely anyone else there. Sitting in between them, both Hermione and Narcissa seemed to notice both Lucius' embarrassment and Draco's concern.

"Showing love...does not make you a weak man," Hermione said firmly, looking past Narcissa and meeting Lucius' fearful eyes, her left hand squeezing Draco's right. The entire room seemed to relax. Minerva looked with great pride upon Hermione, who glanced up towards her then turned back to Lucius. "When you've been taught to do anything but, showing love can be the greatest act of courage and strength possible in a given moment. Being courageous doesn't make you some overemotional, muggle-loving Gryffindor - rather, courage is the means by which you must achieve your ends, and you've only just learned that. Perhaps you've learned it the hard way, but truly, the Lucius Malfoy who cried by his wife's side and protected his son, is a stronger man, worthy of far more respect than the Lucius Malfoy who cowered by the side of the Dark Lord. You should all be proud of yourselves and of each other."

There was a comfortable silence before Lucius responded.

"You'd know all about being a muggle-loving Gryffindor, wouldn't you?" he said slightly teasingly. Looking over at her, Draco could see that Hermione was somewhat taken aback, more by his tone than his words.

"Lucius..." Narcissa murmured, "are you...joking?"

"I do believe so, darling," Lucius replied, looking back at her, then moved so he could see Hermione more clearly.

"Unless, of course, that was not conveyed, in which case, that would have come across as-"

"No, I- that was conveyed," Hermione said with a smile.

**"I am just as proud as the next person;** however, we do have some responsibilities to get on with," Minerva said, trying to quell her own joy at the event she was observing. Severus nodded at her reassuringly.

"So...Severus, I understand you joined Mr Malfoy into his study after you were called, yes?"

Hermione's thoughts were caught on the word 'called', where they remained for the next couple of minutes, to the point where she failed to hear a majority of the questions the Deputy Headmistress was asking people.

"Yes."

"And it was the fireplace in this room which you used to travel first to your home before progressing to Shell Cottage?"

"Yes."

_Called...called...how many ways-_

"Hermione. Hermione!" Draco whispered, and she snapped into consciousness. Minerva looked at her with concern.

"Are you all right, dear?" Andromeda asked.

"Yes, sorry, sorry, I was just- Lucius, how did you call Headmaster Snape?"

Lucius became tense again. He opened his mouth to speak after a moment, but then cleared his throat and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wand, and Hermione didn't notice that she began to grip Draco's hand more fiercely, predicting what was to come. And she was correct; a moment later, a large blue animal burst from his wand and appeared upon the table. Everyone was mystified with trying to decipher its identity; Hermione saw that it galloped like Ginny's patronus, but similar to Dumbledore's phoenix it-

She drew in such a magnificent gasp that it attracted the attention of everyone in the room. She looked at the creature in amazement.

"That's very telling," she declared. Remembering their third year, she turned to Draco and laughed for a short moment.

"Born of the union of a horse and a gryphon, the hippogriff represents love and impossibility, since horses are the natural prey of gryphons. They have the head, wings, and forelegs of a giant eagle but the body of a horse, and are carnivorous and extremely dangerous until tamed-"

"No kidding," Draco griped jokingly.

"You are right, though, Hermione. That is rather telling," Minerva confirmed. "Just to...ask: Severus, Hermione, Andromeda, I know you are able, but Narcissa, Draco, do either of you-"

"Yes," they said in unison. As she had been unable to retrieve her wand before leaving her home, Lucius handed his wand to his wife, and she conjured a little dragon.

"I don't think we need to read particularly far into that one," Minerva chuckled. "Draco?"

As the creature burst from his wand, Hermione again gasped, and again was looked to with confusion. As Severus and Minerva made eye contact, however, they seemed to understand what Hermione had realised: Draco's patronus was an otter, just like hers.

Barely able to speak, Hermione simply grabbed her wand and cast the spell. An otter identical to his danced over to its companion, and as corporeal patronuses sometimes did, they began to imitate the animals they resembled, and started playing around. Most of the room laughed brightly - Severus was not unhappy, but he was also not a man who laughed - and Minerva resisted her compulsion to move on with their meeting sooner rather than later.

**Another hour found Draco and his parents** in the dining room with Molly and Andromeda, drinking tea and talking. Draco did little talking himself, though; he was too wrapped up watching his parents treat the others like equals. His mother and aunt, though, were more than equal; three minutes of conversation, and one would think they'd been best friends all these years. Ultimately they decided to leave the rest of the group and find Tonks, and practically skipped out of the room together.

_The oath. They were going to take the oath. His parents were going to swear allegiance to the Order. His father was going to swear-_

"Are you all right, Draco?" Lucius inquired, noticing that Draco had spaced out entirely.

"Yes, yes," Draco replied weakly.

"How about you go talk to...Hermione?" Lucius suggested, pausing before her name. Draco was taken aback that he had chosen to use it at all, and inhaled sharply as his smile widened. His father returned the grin mildly, and Draco got up and began to leave. As soon as he exited, however, he became insatiably curious as to why his father would have suggested that, and he leaned his ear up against the door, finding that he was able to faintly hear Molly inquire the same. Lucius replied in a meek, struggling voice.

"I...thank you. For saving Narcissa. I was...I have never felt more helpless than in that moment. I could not bear to think that...it would been so much worse than Azkaban to go...to have had to go on without her. And you, who do not even like us-"

"Liking someone is not a factor when there are good people's lives in danger, Lucius. Besides, we had already taken Draco in, and if for no other reason, I would have been obliged to him. Still, you are welcome - very, very welcome."

Draco heard a chair scrape against the floor, and rushed away from the door and up the stairs over to Hermione's room, knocking excitedly.

"The door's open," she said blankly.

_Reading,_ he thought, and he was indeed correct. Her eyes were glued to the pages of the novel on her lap. She lifted only a finger, as if to say "one moment," and Draco chuckled and sat next to her on the bed, careful not to offset her balance. He sat patiently as she finished the chapter and sat the book down on the bedside table.

"So? How did it go?" she asked expectantly, turning her entire body towards him and pushing herself up onto her knees.

"McGonagall decided it would be best to have them take the actual oath later. I mean, my father had enough trouble just saying he would do it to begin with," he professed. "But you should have seen him, Hermione. I mean, he- he even referred to you by name. As in, your first name. I just- he's finally..."

"That's wonderful, Draco!" Hermione exclaimed, gripping his hands.

"Yeah," he agreed, still somewhat in shock as he thought about the meeting.

"I still...I can't believe it," he muttered, moving one hand to her waist and grasping her more tightly. "My mother, I can believe, but it's so hard to trust my father...he hasn't had a sense of humour since I was little, and now he's making jokes with you? It seems far too good to be true."

"He's come a good way, Draco, from where he started. I mean, even to be respectful to the Weasleys at all, to accept being dependent on them...to call me by name! Two weeks ago, you and I both would have sworn he wouldn't be able to do any of that!"

"I...I know...and I hate to think I'm doubting him unfairly, but I still..."

"You have concerns, Draco. That is only human. Fear, empathy, concern, passion...all those are entirely human," Hermione testified, her right arm wrapping around his neck. Draco smiled slyly.

"Would you be offended if I change the subject?" he asked a short moment later. Hermione's expression morphed into one of curiosity.

"Because speaking of passion..." he began rather suggestively - as though were truly any other way to say it - and leaned into her. Her left arm joined her right, her hands clasped behind his neck and pulling him closer as she shifted her weight so that she was laying down. He slid his hand to her hip and her fingers fumbled, perfectly accustomed to tearing off Draco's ties and dress pants, but unwonted to Ron's clothing. Draco's hands moved up her sides, tugging her shirt along and revealing her stomach, but just as the shirt reached her chest there was an urgent rapping on the door. Draco groaned dramatically and rolled over to the other side of the bed, and the door opened, as though the visitor originally had not remembered that all the bedrooms had been soundproofed from the inside. They both watched as Luna jumped inside and shut the door behind her.

"Oh," she moaned. "I've interrupted you."

Hermione seemingly ignored the comment. "What is it, Luna?"

"Oh...I...Draco, can I talk to Hermione for a bit?"

Draco groaned and sighed teasingly, pushing himself off the bed.

"If you must...she's all yours," he said, then winked at Luna and added, "well- maybe not all."

"Draco," Hermione reprimanded, gesturing for him to leave, and he slipped quietly out of the room.

**"You're blushing,"** Hermione immediately observed, and Luna's cheeks turned a bit redder.

"You could say that," Luna affirmed, and climbed upon the bed, sitting cross-legged and close to Hermione. She exuded a giddy, innocent excitement which Hermione recognised well.

"Did you and Ron..." Hermione began, and Luna nodded forcefully.

"Mmm-hmm!"

Hermione nearly squealed, and was uncharacteristically joyous to the point where she was a tiny bit worried about it, though not enough to quell her reaction.

"Luna! That's wonderful! How did it happen? How was it?"

"Well, I- you know he's been hiding in his room since this morning...everyone's been trying to get in, but Harry's the only one he would talk to for a while, but eventually he decided he wanted to talk to me after all so Harry let me in and we all talked a bit."

"Was Harry-"

"No. Just listen!"

"Sorry, sorry."

"So Remus and Tonks come and tell Harry they need to talk to him, and he leaves. Ron's still basically curled up on his bed, and I go over to him, and we talk about why he was curled up on his bed in the first place - I'll tell you in a moment, Hermione, don't worry - and he realises that he's just looking for things to get mad about, so I tell him to stop paying attention to the things that he's getting mad about, and he replies that there isn't much else to pay attention to. He goes on to say that he knows what he'd like to be paying attention to but doesn't know if-" Luna cut herself off.

"If what?" Hermione asked a moment later.

"Well, I'm not sure how he would have finished the sentence...that's when I kissed him," Luna responded shyly.

"You just...kissed him?"

Luna nodded, and Hermione's smile widened.

"And he kissed you back?"

"Oh, yeah," Luna proclaimed, a dazed, desirous expression sweeping over her face. Hermione grinned like a madwoman, hugging Luna tightly.

"Now I understand what you and Ginny were talking about!" Luna contested, then added, "Well, not everything, of course. But I mean, I'm happy I finally did it. I was starting to worry nothing would happen at all, you know..."

"How come you barely talk about this? We've spent all our time talking about me, haven't we?"

"Not all of it!" Luna defended, then sobered. "But maybe most of it. It's not your fault, though! I mean, you've just got a lot you need to talk about. I suppose I'll have more time for myself now, though, since you and Draco can talk to each other now, instead of to me."

"And what about you and Ron? I mean, are you-"

"We didn't talk about it. Intelligent conversation wasn't exactly an option..."


	26. Phantoms of Our Selves

_**[Warning: cliffhanger, plot twist, slightly fluffy parts]**_

**"Kings and Queens" by 30 Seconds to Mars**

_Into the night / desperate and broken / the sound of a fight / father has spoken_

_We were the kings and queens of promise / we were the phantoms of our selves /_

_maybe the children of a lesser god / between Heaven and Hell / Heaven and Hell_

_Into your lies / hopeless and taken / we stole our new lives / through blood and pain /_

_in defence of our dreams / in defence of our dreams_

_We were the kings and queens of promise / we were the phantoms of our selves /_

_maybe the children of a lesser god / between Heaven and Hell / Heaven and Hell_

_The age of man is over / a darkness comes and all / these lessons that we've learned here / __have only just begun_

_We were the kings and queens of promise / we were the phantoms of our selves /_

_maybe the children of a lesser god / between Heaven and Hell / Heaven and Hell_

_We are the kings / we are the queens / we are the kings / we are the queens_

**Draco struggled to keep** his heart rate steady as he watched his father enter the study and walk - lacking his usual strut - over to the desk, stopping in front of it. Lucius' hands trembled. Draco didn't want to imagine how difficult this was for him - a man who had spent his entire life harassing practically anyone who didn't hate muggles, who had sworn himself to be a servant of the Dark Lord, who had allowed the Dark Lord to use his family, his home - to stand in front of his former enemies, and swear allegiance to them. Draco had always known - or at least, suspected - that his parents were different than the people they presented themselves as. Draco's question had long been: just how different were they? Now, he cared more about how much they could change, how much they would invest in redeeming themselves, and with whom.

Lucius' words were garbled as Draco's head swirled. He wondered if this had been what Hermione had always suffered from: a sheer inability to stop thinking. He glanced over at her, observing her withheld anxiety: her foot tapping silently on the floor, her pursed lips, her locked jaw. She noticed that he was looking at her, and found his hand with hers, gripping it affectionately. They smiled at each other, mildly and momentarily, then faced forward again, just in time to watch Lucius receive the quill from McGonagall's outstretched hand. He tensely inserted its tip into the inkwell, his hands still trembling as he tapped away the excess ink and transferred the sharp point to the roll of parchment on the desk before him. It was a document strikingly similar to that which Hermione had devised for Dumbledore's Army, with the grave difference of the organisation profiled; this document contained the only comprehensive list of the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Less than a week previous, Draco had been the first person to sign it in months, but now the parchment would be left on Bill's desk until the two most recent names were dry: Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy. If Draco believed in miracles - and he was no longer sure whether or not he did - perhaps he would have called this one.

Lucius stood to his full height and held the quill in front of Minerva, nodding respectfully. She smiled, reached forward tenderly, and took it from him.

"I will warn you, Lucius, that this will remain an unfamiliar situation for you. There will be no undue punishment or judgement, no torture nor mistreatment. You are a part of this now, and you will be treated as such, Death Eater past disregarded. What matters is the future, what we are fighting for."

Draco noticed that as Minerva spoke, Lucius's head shifted to his left, towards his wife.

"You have found something worth fighting for, that is why you find yourself here; and I welcome you both," Minerva said gingerly, and inhaled deeply.

"Apolline will be here soon; she has recently gone shopping and would like to see what fits you best," she added.

"You're joking," Draco muttered to Hermione and himself. Hermione gently patted his forearm, shooting him a look which scolded him gently.

**Hermione and Luna shuffled** into Fleur's kitchen to find every other woman in the house there, congregated and bustling, preparing what looked to be an extravagant meal - but likely was not, considering the number of people to be fed, even discounting the fact that four of them could consume enough food for three and still be hungry.

Hermione was delighted to see that Narcissa and Andromeda had returned seamlessly to acting like sisters; they finished each other's sentences, teased each other, laughed together. Narcissa was starting to become more protective of Tonks, too, who was begrudgingly sitting at the table reading a book, unhappy to be singled out because of her swiftly approaching due date.

Hermione gently tugged Luna's sleeve, and the pair maneouvred through the other women and over to the table, taking seats across from Tonks. Tonks immediately folded over the corner of the page she was reading, throwing the book onto the table, excited to inquire as to the happenings in the younger women's lives, as though there could be much she didn't know.

"Well..." Hermione began, smiling at Luna, whose face turned bright red.

"'Mione!" Luna reprimanded.

"Hey, you told her about Draco and I!"

"Would you like to say it, then?"

"Ron and Luna had their first snog yesterday," Hermione told Tonks matter-of-factly. Tonks looked at Luna proudly, and Luna rolled her eyes at Hermione.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to-" said Tonks.

"How else are we going to explain anything to his parents?" Luna grimaced.

"I recommend not starting with the snogging part," Hermione warned, somewhat teasingly.

"No kidding," Luna replied.

**Draco took a deep breath,** shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and headed down the hall. Upon reaching the end, he was surprised to find the door ajar. He peeked into the room, and saw his father standing by the vanity, smoothing his brand-new jacket. Draco knocked lightly on the door, and without turning Lucius beckoned to him. Draco closed the door behind him and went to sit on the bed, jealously admiring the handiwork of the French suit. Knowing that it had been purchased by Mme Delacour, it was probable that it was designer status. Lucius raised a periwinkle necktie to his chest, scrunching his nose, then noticed that Draco was looking to him with great confusion.

"Your mother fancied this one," he grumbled, and Draco nodded in understanding. Lucius draped it over the vanity and carefully sat down in a stocky wooden chair.

"Did you want to...talk about something?" he asked apprehensively, and Draco again nodded.

"I- we've never really talked about your relationship...yours and Mother's, I mean," Draco stammered.

"What do you want to know?" Lucius offered.

"How- how did you know?"

"Know what?"

"How did you know that- that it was her, that she was-"

"The one," Lucius finished.

"Yes."

"Well..." he began, leaning back in his chair and looking at the wall contemplatively. He sat silently for a moment then began again, speaking more slowly than usual and occasionally smiling at various memories. He spent a good hour telling Draco a very detailed story of the weeks preceding their engagement, which promptly ended when he glanced at his watch and saw that it was about four-twenty-five.

"Dammit, I promised your mother I'd join her downstairs at four-thirty," Lucius groaned, pushing himself up out of the chair. "I suppose, how I really knew was when I unintentionally changed: when I stopped noticing other girls, stopped drinking with my friends, dreamed about her at night, spent my free time thinking of things I could get her or do for her...when I wanted to slap everyone who disrespected her even a little bit, wanted to give her everything she could possibly want, wanted to spend every waking moment with her..."

The two walked out of the room and turned in opposite directions. Lucius started down the stairs, then stopped abruptly.

"Draco!" he called, and Draco sped over to him, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

"It's her, isn't it? She's the one," Lucius said blankly. Draco opened his mouth to speak; unable, he shut it and cleared his throat before trying again.

"I- yes."

Draco remained glued in place, knowing that while he had previously come to that conclusion he had never imagined being able to verbalise it to his father. Lucius nodded noncommittally, and continued down the stairs. He passed by Hermione as she marched up them, and he greeted her gently. Hermione rushed up the staircase, meeting Draco at the top of the stairs, her excitement turning to concern as she beheld the anxiety radiating from him.

"Are you all right?" she asked worriedly, trying to push a stray piece of hair behind her ears. Draco laughed lightly, and reached forward to do it for her.

"I'm fine," he responded.

"Draco," said Hermione, thoroughly unconvinced. He laid his hand on her hip, guiding her towards their room.

"We need to talk."

"About what?"

"I have to ask you something."


	27. More for Us in This Life

_**[Warning: nice!Ron, nervous!Draco, a plot twist you did not see coming]**_

**"Trees" by Lovehammers & Marty Casey**

_I don't wanna go through this life / without you / by my side /_

_and I got it all worked out / in my head / here's how it's got to be_

_It'll be you and me / up in the trees / and the forest will give us the answer / _

_it'll be you and I / up in the sky / it's a combination for disaster_

_We / we make believe / in a world we rule together /_

_we can build our dreams / with a knot tied tight / to last forever_

_It'll be you and me / up in the trees / and the forest will give us the answer / _

_it'll be you and I / up in the sky / it's a combination for disaster_

_Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah /_

_we got one shot / so let's use our imaginations /_

_yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah /_

_you're all that I got / so where do we go from here_

_It'll be you and me / up in the trees / and the forest will give us the answer / _

_it'll be you and I / up in the sky / it's a combination for disaster_

_I know there's more for us in this life / if we hold on / if we hold strong /_  
_I know there's more for us in this life / can we hold on / can we hold on_

**Hermione raised her eyebrows,** reminding herself not to get worked up before Draco had even said anything. She had a habit of doing that, and she was trying to break it, since it was rather unhealthy.

Draco reached out and grabbed the doorknob to their room. Just as he twisted it, there was a rapid, urgent pounding that dashed up the stairs at the end of the hall. Bill's red hair peeked into Hermione's range of view before he came onto the landing, nearly panting.

"Come, now, both of you!" he directed, and without a second thought Hermione and Draco raced after him and down to the first floor of the cottage. Draco's hand travelled from her hip to her own trembling hand.

"Bill, what's going on?" she demanded, but he shushed her as he led them into the kitchen. Frantically looking around the room, Hermione saw that Fleur, Molly, Tonks, Narcissa, Andromeda, and Remus were not present. Arthur and Lucius stood in the sitting room, seemingly bent over a map of some sort. Luna stood by the sink, holding thick rags under the water to soak them.

"Bill!"

"Almost twenty minutes ago, Tonks' contractions started getting worse. We're not entirely-"

Bill was cut off as his wife sped into the room and over to him, grabbing his arm affectionately.

"Not az bad az we zought origin'ly. Zere don' seem to be complications, bu' ze iz going into labour," Fleur announced.

"Labour, now? That's more than a month early!" Hermione exclaimed, stricken with fear. Fleur nodded solemnly, pursing her lips.

"She's in the best hands she could be, though! Even better than the Healers at St Mungo's!" Luna contested brightly, lessening everyone's anxiety and shifting the mood in the room.

"Luna makes a good point," Fleur said with a smile.

"That's new," Dean added sarcastically, looking teasingly to Luna as she handed the rags to Fleur.

**"Is there anything** we can do to help?" Draco inquired.

"No' really, no," Fleur replied. "Ze fewer people in wiz her, ze better. Zere are already five of us- well, Remus iz 'ere for moral support, but...no, no; just stay 'ere for now."

She turned away, rushing back through the doorway she had come through; Bill strutted over to Lucius and Arthur. Draco cracked a smile at the reassuring grip of Hermione's hand on his. Dean animatedly shoved the chair next to him out from the table; Draco pulled the one next to it and he and Hermione both sat down. Luna turned the tap off, leaving the last of the rags on the counter, and took the seat next to Ron. Harry's head was cradled in his hands.

"You okay, mate?" Ron inquired, and Harry looked up.

"I am so not prepared for this," Harry croaked, practically in tears.

"Prepared for-" Dean started to ask, but Harry interrupted him.

"Last night...they asked me to be the godfather," he said weakly. The girls' expressions brightened.

"Harry, that's wonderful!" Luna exclaimed.

"Does Ginny know?" Ron said teasingly, and Harry managed a modest laugh and a roll of his eyes.

"I'm sure Ginny loves kids," Dean chimed.

"She does sort of seem the type," Hermione added. Harry jokingly glared at both of them, and the whole group chuckled.

_**Hermione groaned,** glancing at her watch for what must have been the tenth time. What did Draco think he was doing, being so late again? It wasn't as though they had agreed that their study schedule was going to change. Just because they-_

_A chorus of quiet, masculine laughter grew increasingly loud, and a moment later three Slytherin boys approached her table, all carrying at least one textbook. She glared at Draco piercingly._

_"No," she said forcefully. One of the other boys turned to look at her._

_"Relax, Granger. We're gettin' outta your bushy hair in just a sec," he sniggered._

_"Blaise," Draco tersely reprimanded._

_"Fine," Blaise grumbled. "See ya back at the dorm, mate. Granger, this bastard's all yours."_

_He grabbed the third boy by the sleeve and pulled him away. Draco turned towards Hermione nervously, and she leaned back in her seat, raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms._

_"Do you realise that it is nearly eight?" she barked. He groaned, laying his textbook across from her on the table._

_"I do, actually," he replied arrogantly._

_"Then why are you just getting here now? We agreed over a month ago that we would meet at six, meaning that you are nearly-"_

_"Two hours late."_

_"Yes..." Hermione's fuming voice trailed off. Draco opened his mouth to speak, but she spoke first._

_"And don't tell me you were busy."_

_He pursed his lips but did not speak._

_"I'm supposed to be tutoring you. We've missed nearly four whole evenings, and with a test next week! How do you expect you'll do?"_

_"I think you mean who-"_

_"Oh, shut it, Malfoy."_

_"Come on, Granger, you know you enjoyed that."_

_"And you don't know any of the main ingredients of the potions we're going to be tested on."_

_The next moment was spent in silence, broken only when Hermione became so uncomfortable with Draco's straying eyes that she brusquely stood up from her seat._

_"Stop trying to look down my shirt!"_

_"Trying, or looking?" he retorted. Potions text in hand, she whipped her arm across the table and forcefully smacked him in the head. She hastily pulled a piece of blank parchment, a quill, and the page on which she had copied their most recent assignments from her bag and shoved them in front of him._

_"I'll expect this first thing tomorrow, Malfoy, whether you sleep or not," she growled at him as she yanked her bag up onto her shoulder, then stomped out of the library and back to her dormitory._

**"Bloody hell, I can't do this,"** Draco stammered, pacing around Ron's room.

"What are you talking about? Of course you can," Harry said.

"And what if she says no? What then?"

"She won't say no."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I've been her best friend for nearly seven years. I know."

"She doesn't get that angry over just anyone," Ron added. Harry raised his eyebrows towards him.

"I'm not helping, am I?" asked Ron, and Harry grimaced softly. All three of them jumped at a knock on the door. Harry grabbed the doorknob and pulled it open. Arthur moved from the hall to just under the doorframe, peering into the room and over at Draco.

"There are two teenage girls downstairs who are dangerously close to losing their minds. It's been three days, Draco; for the sake of the sanity of everybody living in this house, I think you should get down there," he said with a paternal smile. Draco chuckled nervously but stepped over to the door and into the hallway.

"Wish me luck," he croaked, turning back to Harry and Ron. Arthur pulled a ring box from his jacket pocket, placing it in Draco's hand and gripping the young man's shoulder.

"Don't get yourself worked up about it. Just be honest about how you feel and you'll do perfectly fine."

Draco pursed his lips, sliding the box into the pocket inside his jacket.

"Thanks," he said softly, and at Arthur's subsequent release of his arm, drew in a deep breath. He turned and traipsed down the stairs all the way to the first floor. As he pushed open the door of the kitchen, Luna and Hermione both turned to look at him. They were bent over a large jewellery box on the table, and there were various items spread on the tabletop. Luna stood to her full height and skipped past him out of the room, tapping him reassuringly on the shoulder before sweeping through the doorway into the living room. Hermione smiled up at Draco, gently placing a necklace back down on the table.

"We're trying to decide what to wear for Tonks' party," she laughed gently, walking closer to him.

"I think...I just might be able to help with that," Draco remarked as she approached him. He opened his arms and welcomed her into them, gently meeting her lips with his. Her forearms pressed against his chest and her hands rested on his shoulders.

"And how do you propose to do that?" she grinned. Draco tightly pursed his lips, internally breaking into laughter. Hermione observed him tenderly for a short moment before her expression sobered and she gasped.

"Draco," she whimpered, her palms racing to cover her gaping mouth.

"I know it's soon and we're at war and-"

Hermione abruptly cut him off with a forceful kiss. Draco responded with great enthusiasm, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pulling her even closer.

"Marry me," he said when they finally broke apart, and for a short moment she only smiled back at him.

"Of course," she replied, still breathless, waiting impatiently as Draco reached inside his jacket and pulled out the box that Arthur had given him. He'd barely slid the ring onto her finger when she pulled him back in for another kiss.

_**"Morning," Hermione mumbled** as she sat down next to Ginny._

_"Happy Friday," Ginny groaned sleepily. "Oh look, the post."_

_Hermione chuckled, reaching for a piece of toast and some jam. She was surprised to see that when Hedwig flew over to where they sat she dropped an envelope in front of Hermione and then went to sit on Harry's shoulder and nuzzle his cheek._

_The front of the envelope said only Hermione's name, and she furrowed her eyebrows, taking a bite of her toast before slipping her finger through the envelope and opening it. A few seconds later she pulled out a stack of parchment with the answers to the previous week's Potions homework scrawled out on them. She whipped around to see Draco furtively aiming his gaze at the Gryffindor table, and smiled victoriously._


	28. Tear Down My Reason

**"Closer" by Nine Inch Nails**

_You let me violate you / you let me desecrate you /_

_you let me penetrate you / you let me complicate you /_

_help me / I broke apart my insides / help me / I've got no soul to sell /_

_help me / the only thing that works for me / help me get away from myself_

_I want to fuck you like an animal / I want to feel you from the inside /_

_I want to fuck you like an animal / my whole existence is flawed / you get me closer to god_

_You can have my isolation / you can have the hate that it brings /_

_you can have my absence of faith / you can have my everything /_

_help me / tear down my reason / help me / it's your sex I can smell /_

_help me / you make me perfect / help me become somebody else_

_I want to fuck you like an animal / I want to feel you from the inside /_

_I want to fuck you like an animal / my whole existence is flawed / you get me closer to god_

_Through every forest / above the trees /_

_within my stomach / scraped off my knees /_

_I drink the honey / inside your hive /_

_you are the reason / I stay alive_

_**Cormac smelled like coffee and hair gel,** and tasted just about the same; the heat radiated from inside his jacket and his fingers gripped her by the hips. His hesitances were slight, bringing awareness to the little space between them. It was strange, Hermione thought, to consciously realise that she had more experience than a boy. She didn't like to acknowledge the factor, though she knew that it was, in large part, what continued to draw them to her. So much depended on how she was able to represent herself, the aura of confidence she had. That was yet another reason that the events of Thursday evening could never take place again. She wasn't about to let Malf-_

_"Oh no," she groaned, pulling away from Cormac, a bit lightheaded after a good twenty minutes of snogging. He scrunched his eyebrows, looking at her anxiously._

_"What?"_

_"I'm late," she grumbled, dizzily slipping her back onto her shoulder and stepping away from the table._

_"Late for what?"_

_"Tutoring."_

_"Oh, you're a tutor? That's brilliant - I mean, because you're brilliant, of course, so it's sort of obvious you'd be a great-"_

_"Cormac, I need to go," she shoved herself out of his grasp, turning into the aisle and then looking back at him scoldingly._

_"I'll see you later, Cormac," she reassured him, and shooed him away from the area and towards the door of the library. He turned back around every few seconds as he walked, but he eventually made it out of the room._

_**Draco sat alone** at the table in the library, twirling his quill around in his fingers. He reached to his wrist, running his sleeve up his arm so that he could see his watch. Five-fifty. He'd completed his assignment ten minutes ago, and had been sitting in the same exact spot for nearly forty minutes; no wonder his legs felt stiff. He rolled up his other sleeve, habitually fastening the buttons._

_His arms shoved the rest of his body up from the wooden chair, and he took a moment to meander towards the Muggle Studies section a couple rows away. His wandering silvery eyes paused on a volume entitled 'Influential Muggles and Muggle-borns in the Recent Histories of the Muggle and Wizarding Worlds.' The emblazoned gold script shone off of the dark blue spine facing the library aisle. Draco stretched his hand into the bookshelf and grabbed a firm hold on the book, noticing as he pulled it out that it was much heavier than he had expected. He positioned it into both of his skinny arms and strutted back to his seat._

_As he flipped through the table of contents he was stunned by the sheer number of names listed. He'd had no idea that so many influential figures were borne of muggle parents. Part of him yelled at the rest of himself to stop reading, still of the belief that it was unrealistic. He wanted to dismiss the book as fiction and be done with it, but for a nagging but overwhelmingly indescribable reason he could not. He also could not help but think that someday an updated edition of the very book whose pages on which his fingers rested would also bear the name of his very own tutor - who was, at this point of the evening, uncharacteristically and unbelievably, late._

_**Hermione sighed,** and continued along the aisle, speeding past shelves upon shelves of books. Just as she reached their designated table and began to raise her bag in order to place it on the table, she stopped abruptly, her breath following suit but her heartbeat doing exactly the opposite._

_"You were...on time?" she choked out, unable to mask the shock which overwhelmed her._

_"Actually, I was early," Draco retorted, tenderly folding over the corner of the book on the table in front of him; he started to close the book, then thought better of it, leaving it open and pushing it aside. His eyes were curiously blue, Hermione noticed, and less accusing, less angry, than she would have expected. "It's fine, really - I mean, I've certainly shown up late - of course, you are the tutor rather than the pupil, so I suppose that's different - I probably would have failed the exam anyways - besides, I know exactly how you can make up for it-"_

_"Don't even-"_

_"You know, for someone so disinterested in organised sports, you sure have a thing for Quidditch players-"_

_"For someone whose grades are dependent on my help, you are really pushing your luck-"_

_"Luck? What luck? I'm rich, witty, and a great fuck. Why would I need luck?"_

_"Because you're pushing everything else, too. If you keep recklessly pushing buttons, eventually you'll hit the red one, Malfoy, and you should keep that in mind."_

_"What in the hell do buttons have to do with this, Granger? Is this some other stupid muggle thing?"_

_"They are not stupid muggle things, Malfoy! Muggles are, contrary to your belief, people just like wizards and witches-"_

_"Except that they're not - wizards and witches-"_

_"Does every sentence out of your mouth have to be offensive?"_

_"I'm talking to you, Granger, to whom everything is an offence. Do the maths."_

_"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Every push, a push back. My offence is not caused by your speaking but rather by your remarks-"_

_"That actually makes a damn bit of sense - where'd you get a philosophy like that?" Draco jeered._

_"It's one of the laws of physics - excuse me - muggle science," Hermione returned forcefully._

_"Heh. Looks like your kind got something right for once."_

_"Ahem," Hermione griped teasingly, and Draco dramatically raised his eyebrows to imply his inquiry. __"My parents are both Muggles-"_

_"And?"_

_"They had me."_

_Draco smirked. _

_"Yes, yes, Mr and Mrs Granger procreated, let us grant they and the result of their actions the highest honours and awards!"_

_Hermione raised her right index finger, returning the smirk and walking closer to the table._

_"Conversely, a husband and wife, both born of two of the wealthiest, most powerful and most prominent pureblood families in the Wizarding World, are blessed with a single heir who has come to necessitate the assistance of said result."_

_"You're not funny, Granger."_

_"Nor are you. However, I do not entertain the belief that I am-"_

_"My belief is that you're supposed to teach me something."_

_"I am teaching you. If you're actually paying attention, that is. Either way, I'm meeting with Slughorn this weekend and will be sure to pass that information on."_

_"Be sure to mention your tardiness, too, Granger. I'm sure the bastard will appreciate it."_

_"No less than he'll appreciate your calling him a bastard."_

_"Eh, I don't worry about offending relatively unimportant people-"_

_"I've noticed," Hermione said chidingly. "Seemingly you respect no one but your obstinate father, deranged aunt, Professor Snape, and your precious Lord Vol-"_

_"Granger!" Draco barked, forcefully cutting her off as he swung to his feet._

_"What?" she sneered. "He can't penetrate these walls. I could scream his name with all my might, at the top of my lungs, and he would be unable still to reach me!"_

_Hermione grew even more tense, working her spine into alignment to more closely match Draco's height._

_"Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself," she added ferociously. "I'm not afraid of his name, and I'm not afraid of him. You, like Wormtail, like Crouch, like your father-"_

_"Don't say another word about my father!"_

_"Follow your so-called Dark Lord out of fear," she enunciated more intently, her voice raised._

_"Duty and fear are not the same," Draco said immediately._

_"No, but you haven't learned to see the difference."_

_"How would you know?"_

_"Think: were you instructed to perform some task for him, a task which would almost certainly result in your death...what would you do?"_

_Draco avoided looking at her, choosing instead to stare at the floor until he spoke again, his voice thin and vindictive._

_"Accept it. Complete it if I can, die if I don't."_

**"And Teddy, this is your uncle Draco.** Draco, Teddy, Teddy, Draco."

Draco was beaming as he carefully took a seat on the bed, looking into the wide, sparkling eyes of the child in Tonks' arms.

"Hello, Teddy," Draco said softly, tenderly taking one of the boy's tiny hands in between the thumb and index finger of his right hand.

"A miracle, this baby is," Andromeda contested proudly, her relief unintentionally evident. "And he'll be skilled, strong and impatient, just like his mum."

"And probably just as clumsy, too!" Tonks grinned.

"What exactly is he considered species-wise? Technically he wouldn't be entirely human..." Draco postulated. A softly confident voice echoed from the doorway.

"Lycanthropy isn't hereditary, so he surely won't be a werewolf, but it's probably too soon to tell whether he can change his appearance at will." The blonde's gentle eyes found Tonks'.

"May I?"

"Yes, yes, certainly!"

Tonks gestured Luna over, and Luna walked quietly to the head of Tonks' large bed. Even when she sat down she seemed to float, Draco noticed.

"Hermione and I did some research earlier," she murmured, her voice gradually trailing off. "Speaking of which, the Delacours are here to see you," she added, turning her eyes momentarily up at Draco.

"Fleur's mum must absolutely love her job," Tonks laughed. Draco chuckled in agreement, gently moving off of the bed and heading for the door; he waved to Teddy on his way out.

_**Hermione gritted her teeth.** Was it fair to judge Malfoy based on his remarkably intact sense of self-preservation? He'd been taught nothing else, and even the majority of the Order's most skilled members refused to say Voldemort's name. Harry, Sirius, and Dumbledore were the only people who openly spoke it until she had begun to use it. All were special circumstances. Besides, she knew nothing of how Malfoy acted in his home. Perhaps he seemed a different person entirely. She knew the phenomenon well - far better than she'd prefer. Perhaps-_

_"How did we get here?" Draco grumbled._

_"You insulted me," Hermione returned._

_"Ah, yes." Draco paused, returning to his chair. "By the way, what did buttons have to do with it?"_

_Hermione stifled a laugh._

_"It's...sort of a muggle expression. People joke about the President of the United States-"_

_"The what, Granger?"_

_Hermione sighed._

_"May I finish my sentence?"_

_Draco gestured affirmatively._

_"President is...think of it as the same role of a Prime Minister, just in a country with a different type of government. Anyway, some people joke that he has a button in his office, a red button, that, if pressed, will supposedly declare nuclear warfare."_

_"Nu-what?" Draco sputtered, and she sighed again, rubbing her fingers against her temple._

_"I've got a long night ahead of me, don't I?" she groaned._

_"Now we're finally getting somewhere," he grinned, tapping his quill on his lower lip._

_"That isn't what I meant, and you know that," Hermione admonished._

_"Do I, though?" he continued, rising from his seat and moving towards her. With a shaky inhale, she turned away just as he approached her. Anxiety rose in her stomach and her heart pounded painfully faster. Her arms having been hanging at her sides, she locked her fingers and brought her sweating palms together in front of herself. She had proved her point, hadn't she? Did he really have to insist on this? She already had Ron and Cormac vying desperately for her attention; the last thing she needed was for Malfoy to push his way into the competition, although she was almost sure he'd done so already. It took his gentle fingers trailing across her shoulder for her to realise she was shivering._

_"Don't-" Draco whispered, "tell me it's cold in here."_

_Hermione shook her head, tears threatening to form in her eyes. After a few breaths, she pushed the words out from her parched throat, throwing them violently from her mouth._

_"This is beyond wrong..."_

_"I'm not asking you for romance. Trust, I want as little as possible to do with you and your muggle world and your rather soporific personality. Your body, on the other hand..."_

_She scoffed then trembled, biting her lip and internally cursing herself, as he inched up behind her. He softly dragged her hair over her shoulders with his fingertips, slowly running his fingers to the nape of her neck._

_"is rather tempting," he whispered into her right ear, the front of his body meeting the back of hers._

**"Draco, zis is my mum,"** Fleur boasted as soon as Draco was within earshot, swiftly but daintily strutting towards him and dragging him enthusiastically into the living room. He extended his hand to a woman who appeared an older version of Fleur, and she pulled him towards her, exuberantly kissing him on both cheeks. There was a rapid pounding on the stairs.

"Fred, George, I have legs of my own!" Hermione's voice travelled from above.

"Come on!" the two said in unison. In a matter of seconds the living room, originally containing only Draco and Fleur's family, held enough people that the room felt a little bit warmer. Fred and George bounded over to the adolescent Gabrielle, teasingly trying - and failing - to ruffle her beautiful blonde hair. She shoved both of them away, affectionately yet with unexpected force, laughing and eventually hugging them.

Fleur's father greeted Draco cordially, and Fleur excitedly beckoned Hermione over from the other side of the room. Apolline, as Fleur's mother introduced herself, grasped the young woman almost immediately, planting two pecks on each of her cheeks. Hermione stumbled backward, subsequently exchanging a sincere handshake with Monsieur Delacour.

"'Air-min-ny," Gabrielle exclaimed, rushing over and greeting her. "Félicitations!"

Gabrielle blushed, realising she'd forgotten the word in English but not that Hermione could also speak French.

"Merci beaucoup, Gabrielle," Hermione giggled, and Gabrielle relaxed, but slipped away from the others and into her sister's right arm; Bill already stood at Fleur's left side. Fred and George traipsed loudly back up the staircase.

"I 'ope I did well for you," Apolline said, looking curiously to Draco and Hermione. Hermione scrunched her eyebrows.

"I am not entirely mental enough to sneak away in the middle of the night to go shopping, 'Mione," Draco said tenderly and slightly teasingly.

"I was wondering how..." she murmured, smiling.

"Actually it was your par- parents' idea, more than mine. Harry and I were spectacularly excited about spending some time outside, but alas-"

"That may have been the most dangerous, idiotic plan either of you has come up with!"

"Probably...see, we are responsible young men and indeed have not yet snuck out of any of the safehouses."

"Yet," she repeated pointedly, giggling and kissing him on the cheek. "You've been under Order protection for a week, Draco. It's not a record to boast about."

He stood rather still for a moment, meeting her loving but concerned eyes, then gently sighed.

"That's fair," Draco conceded, wrapping his left arm around her waist.

_**Hermione grimaced at a throbbing in her chest.** He was unbearably close to her. She thought momentarily of the metaphor of the ocean; she may as well have been teetering on the edge of a cliff, but she was so close to falling off she was convinced she was going to drown. It was safest to step away from the cliff altogether, but it wasn't as though she could avoid her predicament. Malfoy was unfamiliar to her on personal terms; there was no planning, no preparation she could do that would benefit her if and when she fell. No lifeboat, no lighthouse, no one to call out for._

_She pressed her eyes shut, trying to breathe more deeply, and there it was again. The scent of cologne, parchment, and coffee. The sensation of his hands on her neck, the stirring in her stomach, the unmistakable moisture on her lips. The salacious, seemingly implacable craving infecting her bloodstream, poisoning her sanity._

_There was another option, and although it was indubitably the most dangerous, it was also the most enticing: she could jump._

_"Tempting? Is that the best you could do?" she chided. She drew in another heavy breath, acutely aware of the way in which her chest rose and fell, trembling beneath the single button binding her burgundy- and gold-pinstriped jumper and her person._

_One button._

_One tee shirt._

_One deep breath._

_One deciding moment._

_One more breath._

_Hermione's right hand reached to the middle of her chest and undid the button. The oversized jumper slid down her arms. She thrust it onto the middle of the table and whirled around. Her left hand reached almost instinctually for the tie loosely cinched around Draco's neck, closing the minimal gap that he had left between them, and kissed him fiercely. _

_In an intoxicatingly rough manner, Draco's hands travelled to her hips. He gripped her waist unceremoniously as she leaned into the bookshelf behind her; and with his covetous eyes fixed on hers, he tore his tie from Hermione's grasp and jerked it over his head, tossing it onto the table. He trailed his fingers gently up her sides as he lifted the thin grey tee shirt from her skin. Hermione subsequently made impressively quick work of his pressed white dress shirt and dragonhide belt._

_Her last truly coherent thought was to check that the aisle was adequately soundproofed - it was - before wrapping her arms around Draco's neck and disappearing into what promptly became a state of mutual unadulterated elation. It was oblivion, bliss, lust, gratification. It was ardent, carnal, candid. It was unrestrained, unassuming, and unprecedented, and it was over all too soon. _

_As Madam Pince's words echoed, Hermione found herself the littlest bit resentful. __She blushed, nervously tucking strands of hair back behind her ears. Draco slipped his right index finger under her chin, tipping her head upwards and kissing her again, this time more slowly. When they broke apart he grabbed his tie, wrapping it around her neck and beginning to tie it._

_"Don't...you...dare," Hermione cautioned, hastily jerking it over her head, and Draco shrugged. She rolled her eyes._

_"Was worth a shot," he contested, and placed the grey tee shirt in her hand._


End file.
